Cry Wolf

Chapter XXXVII: Seventh Year

It was a delayed start, but Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Harry were all finally being shipped off for their last year at Hogwarts. Dumbledore had postponed the first day of school in hopes that Snape would be found and could resume teaching potions, but after being declared dead with a public service announcing that fact, Ginny supposed he had to give up on Snape's return and open the school.

Ginny personally didn't know what to think anymore. Sometimes she became overwhelmed with the thought that Severus could be dead and other times she flat-out refused to believe it. Her emotions were like a roller coaster lately, most likely stress was the factor. Annoyance that Harry kept trying to hint that they should date again probably played a role in it as well. On top of that, she still hadn't seen Teneberr yet, but it had only been three days. If her Dad, Lupin and Moody couldn't find Severus in two weeks, it would probably take a bird more than three days.

"Ginny, are you going to play with us or are you going to stare out the window the whole ride?" Hermione asked. Ginny looked away from the view of trees whipping past and brought her attention back to the inside of the train compartment they were all sharing. Ron, Hermione and Harry were about to start a game of exploding snap. Hermione was holding the deck with a questioning look on her face. She'd been giving Ginny a lot of those looks since the memorial.

If only she'd never caught us in that closet! Ginny thought sourly. Harry looked all too eager that she should join them in their game.

"She can be on my team." He said hopefully.

"Actually, I think I'll take a walk, see if I can find Anna-Rose." Ginny interjected before Ron could agree with Harry.

"All right then." Hermione sighed, then set out to dealing the cards.

"C'mon Tim, let's go." Ginny called. The furball jumped up from where he was laying with an excited whine and bounded after her out into the hallway. The creature had finally stopped growing and was about the size of a golden retriever but his body and tail were more catlike while his eyes were friendly like a dogs and his ears were droopy.

The two closed the door to the compartment behind them and were no sooner in the hallway before they were met by a familiar, unpleasant voice.

"Control your mutt Weasley." Barry Binnetly snarled as he passed them in the opposite direction, barely squeezing around Tim, who stood obediently at Ginny's side.

Tim arched his back and hissed. Ginny chuckled as she saw Barry quicken his pace and veer off into a compartment.

"Good boy." She whispered and patted his head before setting off in her search for Anna-Rose.

The first few compartments she searched were full of what she guessed were first years but she didn't have to look very far to find her friend.

Anna was in a compartment with Tia, the two were looking at a Witch Weekly magazine and giggling. Ginny slid the door open and entered the compartment, making sure Tim was clear before she closed it behind her. Anna-Rose's eyes lit up when she saw her and she jumped up to hug her friend.

"I looked everywhere for you at the train station!" She exclaimed, her arms squeezing Ginny tight.

"I looked for you too. We must have just missed each other." Ginny explained, squeezing Anna back before the two broke apart and Anna went back to sit down. Tia was staring at Ginny with disapproval before, as always, her mind seemed to cloud over and then she quickly forgot that she had ever known that her and Snape were together.

Were together? Are together? Ginny didn't know anymore.

"So how was your summer?" Anna asked. "Besides, you know, the obvious..." Anna-Rose trailed off.

Ginny sighed and shrugged, not quite sure how to answer.

"It was fine I suppose." She said without conviction. "Up until the final battle it was pretty good."

"I'm sorry Ginny." Anna-Rose said sympathetically.

"Did you lose someone Ginny?" Tia asked.

"One of my uncles." Ginny lied.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. That's awful." Tia said sadly.

"Thanks."Ginny replied.

Just then the compartment door slid open and a boy with shaggy tawny hair poked his head into the compartment.

"Hi there." He said to everyone in general. "Tia, do you want to come to our compartment? We're playing gobstones and you're really good so I thought you might wanna be on my team." He was blushing slightly by the time he finished talking and so was Tia.

"Sure." She answered quietly before she bounded away, leaving Ginny and Anna-Rose alone.

"Well, we're alone now, do you wanna talk about it?" Anna-Rose asked patting the seat next to her.

Ginny plopped down next to her friend and heaved a sigh.

"I don't know what to think anymore Anna."

"What do you mean?" Anna-Rose asked. Ginny stared out the window for a quiet minute before answering.

"About anything. Voldemort is dead, most of the death eaters are captured, the wizarding world is free, I should be happy."

"Well, you lost someone close to you. It's hard to be happy when that happens." She pointed out.

"They never found his body." Ginny found herself saying without really meaning to. Beside her, Anna was silent for a long moment.

"The ministry declared him dead Ginny." Anna-Rose said slowly, her voice filled with worry.

"They never found him." Ginny repeated. "I can't believe it until they find... something..." She could feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and did her best to hold them back.

Anna studied Ginny thoughtfully for a minute, her expression sympathetic, but she didn't press it any further which Ginny was immensely grateful for. Thankfully Anna-Rose was not long to change the subject and the two chatted amicably for the rest of the ride. Ginny did her best to stay involved but her thoughts were still elsewhere.

XXXXXXXXX

Nurse Kendra ripped the sheets off the hospital bed and heaved a deep sigh as she threw them into the laundry bin. It had been nearly a week since that Snape man had escaped from the hospital. At first the place was crawling with policemen and reporters, asking her all sorts of ridiculous questions. One reporter had somehow found out that the man had been Russian and had come up with all sorts of crazy theories about spies and weapons of mass destruction and attacks against British shipyards by Russian submarines.

"Soon we'll all be marching goosestep, speaking Russian and saluting the USSR!" He'd exclaimed as two policemen had escorted him off the premises.

"Some people are whack jobs." She muttered to herself, throwing clean sheets out over the bed with a flick of her wrists, and then setting to tucking in the corners.

"Have you almost got this room finished, Kendra? We've got a new patient coming in here in ten minutes or so." The doctor asked, poking his head into the room to see how she was doing.

"Yes, Nearly finished." She replied. The doctor nodded and left the room. Kendra topped the sheets off with the bedspread and fluffed the pillow a bit before moving to empty the garbage.

Just as she tied the knot in the bag and pulled it from the bin she heard a popping noise from the hallway, a slight pause, and then two more. Freezing, the bag of garbage still dangling from hand, she strained her ears to listen.

"What was that?" She asked herself. Only normal hospital noises droned on around her as an answer and after a moment she relaxed. "Must be nothing." Skillfully she tossed the bag of garbage onto the bottom of her cart and placed a new bag in the bin. Then she wiped the table with a disinfectant wipe and threw that into the cart's attached garbage can.

She was just giving the room one last inspection, checking for forgotten tissues or overlooked dirt when she heard footsteps in the doorway.

'Must be the new patient.' she thought. "The room is all ready for you."

She jumped mildly with surprise, there was no patient or escorting hospital staff in the doorway. Instead there were three figures, she assumed they were all men, who quickly stepped into the room and shut the door behind themselves. Kendra heard the click of the lock and stepped back towards the wall, a knot of fear beginning to form in her throat.

All three of them were completely clad in menacing black robes that flowed all the way to the floor. Their faces were covered in strange skull like masks and they all carried pointed sticks in their hands.

"I don't care so much about the room." One of them said, he stood ahead to the other two and was clearly the leader of the three, despite the fact that he was shorter and unimpressive of build when compared to the others, who were both tall and muscularly broad.

"What do you want?" She asked, her voice quavered in the slightest. Instinctively she backed away until she bumped into the cart behind her.

"Where is Severus Snape?" The leader demanded, his voice was deep and had an eagerness to it of someone yearning for greatness.

Kendra's mind raced a mile a minute. These weirdos were after that Snape bloke? Why? Maybe he really had been a Russian spy and now these folks were here to punish him for blowing his cover.

"Are the paper's true? Is he really a spy? Are you all spies?" She asked hysterically, with sudden realization she remembered that the shredded garment Snape had been wearing his night of admission had been identical to what these men were wearing now, just a little worse for wear.

With a flick of his wrist the leader pointed his 'stick' at her and suddenly she was tumbling, then rising in a flurry of movement until she was hanging from her ankle in midair, completely baffled, flailing and twisting to try to break herself free.

"How do you know Snape was a spy?" He hissed, "What did he tell you?"

"Nothing!" Kendra insisted, "It was in the tabloids!"

"Tabloid?" One of the two in the back asked the other.

"Muggle gossip paper, usually all lies." the other answered.

"Please, get me down!" Kendra pleaded, tears were running from her eyes and up across her forehead.

"Where is Severus Snape?" the leader repeated.

"I don't know." she sobbed.

"Where is he!"

"He escaped! About a week ago." Kendra blurted. The hold on her ankle suddenly gave way and she crashed to the floor in a heap.

"You're lucky today." the leader said, stepping up to Kendra where she lay, groaning and clutching her arm. "OBLIVIATE!" He shouted, and then there was nothing.

XXXXXX

This last week, or however long it had been, had been rough on Snape. He'd been moving mostly by night, keeping in his animagus form, finding places where he could lay low during the day, such as behind industrial rubbish bins and in the back seat of unlocked cars.

He'd wandered into the suburbs pretty quickly, kicking around for a few days where the houses had a little more space and some people were fortunate enough to have a lawn. Here he managed to steal some clothes off of a line that he thought would fit him, and spent the night in a shed that someone had left open, which was a welcome break from the cooling fall air.

He spent a few more nights wandering the community and managed to swipe a bag of groceries from someone who had forgotten them by their car. The bag hadn't contained much, just some apples, bran cereal and soda crackers. He wouldn't have typically considered this a good meal but they were much better than the table scraps and dog food he'd been stealing.

It had taken him a while to find suitable shoes, but he'd finally managed to nick a pair off of a back porch. Now with a shirt, pants and shoes he looked presentable enough to wander the street a little as a man instead of a wolf.

When he had been a kid, before he had ever gotten his letter from Hogwarts, he'd spent most of his days wandering the streets around spinners end, anything really to get out of the house. Since he hadn't had any money as a child, he'd become quite the pickpocket. Now his skills were more than a little rusty but he still managed to lift a wallet off of a passerby in the crowd. Of course, he didn't really want to steal from the man but he needed some money, so he quickly removed the bills and dropped the wallet a little further down the street, hoping that the man would come back and find it, or that someone else might return it.

The first thing he had to do, was change his appearance. He had no idea how he'd gotten hurt, or who was after him, but he had to survive long enough to get to Dumbledore and warn him about Voldemort's plan against Lily. The best chance of making that happen was to make himself harder to recognize.

Money in his pocket and an idea buzzing around in his head, Snape stepped into the first barber shop he came across and after a bit of a wait, settled into the chair.

"What can I do for you?" The barber asked politely, though the look on his face in the mirror was a little astonished at the amount of hair Snape had.

"Cut it off." He said almost regretfully.

"How much?"

"All of it."

XXX