That night as Harry entered Dumbledore's office, he was surprised by the faces that looked back at him. He saw McGonagall, the Weasleys, and Dumbledore all looking at him intensely. He also saw Draco and Hermione as well. Apparently his team was now assembled.
"Are you alright, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"I'm fine," he answered. "We'll talk later."
"Yes, yes," Dumbledore said, coming to the front. "We are happy that you survived the Dragon incident intact, Harry."
"Thank you, sir."
"Now let's see if we can do the same for the current crisis. I admit, I am much disappointed in Miss Bulstrode."
"She is obviously an occlumens," Snape told him. "I would have been able to feel her malice at least a little without directly trying."
"And she obviously has support and direction from elsewhere," Lupin's eyes snapped. "This is far too complicated of a plot to have been just hers."
"Is she seventeen yet?" McGonagall asked. "Will she be sent to Azkaban?"
"She is," Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "Such a waste of a talented young witch."
"It's all well and good to have sympathy after the fact," Snape said icily. "But right now we need to create a plan. I suggest the children retire to the next room so they can console each other while we create a plan."
"But we'd really rather . . ." Hermione began, and then stopped suddenly from the glare that Snape gave her. "I mean, yes, sir," she gulped.
"You can ring for tea, children," Dumbledore told them, ushering them to the space just outside his office. "I'm sure you have a lot to talk about."
The three children faced each other, sipping tea, and wondering what the adults were talking about.
"Did Lupin really punish you?" Hermione asked nervously.
"Ten with a ruler," Malfoy commented offhandedly, as if it were nothing. "Don't worry, we didn't rat on anybody else."
Hermione paled, thinking that could have been her. She didn't visit the dragon as much as the others, but she had seen the birth and had visited. She was as guilty as they were. "Thanks," she managed.
"Thank you, Draco," Harry said, hardly able to look up. "I think I may owe you my life."
"Melodramatic muggle," Draco sneered, though Harry could see his ears blush a little. "As if I would actually try to kill you. Off the Quidditch pitch, that is."
"Still, I owe you one. I hope you don't pay for it with your father."
"Tell me, Potter, you don't have a huge amount of affection for me," Draco levelled. "Would you take a punishment from Snape, even a harsh one, to save my my life?"
"Of course!"
"Then how could you think I have any less honor than that?" he smirked.
"What happened?" Hermione asked, her eyes wide.
"Millicent's crazy cousin Amanda was behind trying to kill Potter," Draco explained. "She thought she'd cash in on my friendship with him to do it. She cornered me earlier today and threatened me with everything but the Cruciatus for me to get him to touch a portkey off of Hogwart's grounds. I agreed to do it, but I told ol' Snape about it as soon as I could."
"I can't believe we didn't realize it was her," Hermione groaned. "It should have been so obvious."
"She's a crazy one," Draco said. "I should have guessed. Their family has blamed Potter all along for the fall of the Dark Lord and their subsequent fall in fortune. They did not handle it appropriately."
"Like pleading the Imperious?" Harry asked, a slight smirk on his lips.
"What works, works," Draco dismissed Harry's comment. "Better than going batty like the Bulstrodes did."
"But how did your father know what she was going to do next?" Harry asked curiously. "He warned me about a portkey. Do you think he knew?"
"My father is, well, practical," Draco said, sighing. "I never know what he's going to do next. He very well could have ordered me to help crazy girl or he could have told me to side with you because you were more powerful. I don't know, it's all about politics with him."
"Do you think he was behind it?" Hermione asked carefully.
"I don't know," Draco said. "But if he was, it was not as an initiator. If he really wanted you dead, Harry, the attempts would have been far more serious. I suspect he probably helped the Bulstrodes somewhat, and then ingratiated himself to you as well by ordering me to befriend you and by warning you."
"That seems very calculating," Hermione observed.
"He's a Slytherin," Draco answered, rolling his eyes. "No one plan ever suffices, you need backups. Right now he doesn't know if the Dark Lord is coming back or not. If he does come back, he needs to look good and be seen to have upheld all that stuff. Befriending Potter could do that too, if he spun it right. But also Potter is going to have a lot of power, so if the Dark Lord doesn't return it works for him to have a son be friends with him. See? Contingency plans."
"You acting without asking him, I mean, won't he be mad?" Harry asked.
"I didn't want to ask him," Malfoy admitted quietly. "Because I didn't want to do it. Honestly, Potter, haven't you heard of plausible deniability? I could always say I was acting under his orders to befriend you."
"Oh," Harry considered. He wasn't used to thinking about all the implications.
"What do you think the grownups are planning?" Hermione asked, sipping her tea.
"Probably who to polyjuice to use as bait," Draco rolled his eyes. "At least Snape's in there, without him it's just a bunch of bloody Gryffindors."
…,,,...,,,...,,,...
"Polyjuice won't work," Snape told them, rolling his eyes. "The port key is probably keyed to Harry's magical signature, and polyjuice only changes your appearance, not your magical signature."
"Of course," Dumbledore acknowledged. "But what if Harry comes as well?"
"What do you mean?" Snape demanded, his eyes narrowing.
"What if he touched the portkey but held onto to someone polyjuiced to look like him?" Dumbledore asked. "And the real Harry could be under an invisibility cloak."
"Do you still have James' cloak?" Arthur asked.
"I do," Dumbledore said. "And then whomever goes as polyjuiced Harry can call the rest of us through your device, Arthur."
"Too risky," Snape said, shaking his head. "I won't put Harry at risk like that."
"If you have another idea, I would love to hear it," Dumbledore told the potions master gently. "But I myself feel more worried about what will happen as Miss Bulstrode and whomever is putting her up to it will have a plan that we do not know about as thoroughly as we do this one."
Snape pressed his lips together, knowing Dumbledore was right. It was a risk to keep letting them take pot shots at Harry, and eventually they would get lucky.
"I am willing to concede if it is carefully planned," Snape intoned. "And I will be the one to be polyjuiced to look like Harry."
"Shouldn't it be Albus?" McGonagall asked, concerned.
"He's needed on the outside to get through protective barriers if we need it," Snape answered. "He's the best at that. Does anybody dispute that I'm not only the best at occlumency so I can pretend to be the boy, but also at defensive magic?"
"But what happens if something happens to you?" McGonagall countered. "The boy cannot lose you too."
"And he won't," Snape informed her firmly. "I do not intend to be taken out by the likes of the Bulstrodes. But if you think me capable of hanging back while any other wizard is in that place, you do not know me well."
"He's right," Lupin quietly agreed. "When we had this chance before I assumed it would be me going through the portkey. I would still be willing to do it in a heartbeat, but I don't think anybody could fight harder for Harry than Snape. If Harry has to go to activate the portkey, It should be Severus with him."
"You're right," Dumbledore agreed. "Now we must act as if there's nothing unusual tomorrow, and we must not make MIss Bulstrode suspicious. I anticipate her watching carefully, and then using the floo to go wherever it is Harry gets apparated to go."
"You can put a trace on the floo," Molly told them. "It's not hard, parents do it all the time to keep track of where their teenagers go."
"That might work better than following my device," Arthur said. "Although, definitely have both Harry and Snape have it for a backup."
"This is dangerous," Snape said, exhaling firmly. "We do not know where that portkey will lead. We do not know how many people are on the other end. We do not know anything, really, except that we cannot let Miss Bulstrode continue to endanger Harry with impunity."
"It is unknown," Dumbledore told him. "But I cannot believe her to be sophisticated, Severus. Surely you can disarm her without hardly trying."
"Her, yes," Snape told him without false modesty. "To be sure there are few wizards that I couldn't best in a fair fight. But we don't know if it will be fair."
"This is your call, Severus," Dumbledore told him. "If you think it more prudent to wait, then we will wait. You are the child's guardian, it has to be your decision."
"We will do it," he told them heavily. "We don't have a choice."
That night, Snape tucked Harry into bed thinking about the next day. He couldn't really stand the idea of the danger. He had done many dangerous missions before, but he had never felt this way before. He had never had so much to lose before. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that if he lost Harry it would not just be sad, it would be devastating. He probably would never recover from it. He felt strangely vulnerable; he had never felt fear like this before.
"Time for my smacks?" Harry asked, rolling onto his stomach.
"Oh, yes," Snape said. "I suppose so."
"I am sorry for lying to you," Harry told him, pushing his face in his pillow.
Snape lowered the blanket to reveal Harry's pajama-clad backside, and he landed two sharp smacks on the miscreant's posterior. He then pulled up the blanket and sat on the bed beside Harry.
"My backside was mostly better from Lupin's spanking," Harry told him. "That wasn't too bad."
"Good," Snape said absently, rubbing Harry's hair.
"Are you scared about tomorrow?" Harry asked.
"Of course," Snape told him, patting his back. "I have done many dangerous things before, Harry, but this has me very nervous. I have never had to risk you before, Harry."
"I'll be good and do exactly what you tell me," Harry assured him.
"It's not that," Snape sighed. "It's just, well, I've never cared about someone like I care about you. And it's hard to know what to do with that."
"Really? You care about me like that?"
"Of course," Snape told him seriously. "You have to know that I care about you Harry."
"I had hoped," Harry admitted, wiping a tear away.
"On Christmas when you gave me that card, I wanted you to know that I felt the same way. I am glad we're a family together."
"Do you think you might ever get to be my dad?" Harry asked quietly, so quietly that Snape could almost pretend he didn't hear.
Snape weighed the options on telling Harry that he was trying to adopt him. He wanted Harry to know, but he didn't want to get the boy's hopes up if he wasn't going to be able to do it. "I don't know," Snape told him seriously. "But there is nothing I would like more."
an: I am going to be out of town and won't be able to update for a few days. So sad to break my post every day trend.