"So, where does this leave us Granger?" Snape asked as they sat in his private study drinking fire whiskey three days later. The prophecy had been placed beneath impenetrable charms and hidden away after they had listened to it the fiftieth time, leaving the pair time to contemplate their findings in peace.
"I…don't know." She replied and miserably downed a shot.
"Well, I would say that it is fairly obvious that neither Albus nor Voldemort can know of this."
"Do you really think so Severus?" Hermione snapped as she magicked her shot glass full.
"I would also say that it would not be entirely wrong to assume that we have been mislead to believe that Harry is a weapon when in fact he is really-"
"A sacrificial lamb." Hermione interrupted and her face became hard and cold as tears trickled down her cheeks. She gulped down the fire whiskey in her shot glass, ignoring the burn as more tears escaped her almost black eyes.
"All this, just so they can kill him!" She exclaimed, savagely rubbing her tears away and downing several more shots in rapid succession.
"Granger, we don't know if that is even what the prophecy-" Snape began semi-worriedly.
"No! And then goddamn Dumbledore hiding this from everyone! He's known all along…" she continued her angry and then melancholy ramblings as she imbibed more and more drink. Snape watched haplessly as she wept bitter tears. Tears dripped down her chin and mingled with the amber liquid she was too intoxicated to swallow.
Mere minutes before he knew she would succumb to the poison in her system and need to be carried to bed the ward he had placed warning him of fire calls, did just that. He groaned as he left her and placed a silencing charm around the room she would spend the night in. He walked from his study to the living room where the head of a grave-looking Lupin was suspended, wreathed in flame.
"Hogwarts! Now!" The werewolf spoke in a frightened, tired voice before disappearing and Snape flooed to the headmaster's office.
Upon arriving he found Lupin standing in the headmaster's office by the desk. "We have to get to headquarters now!" He cried and dashed from the room. Snape, knowing that it would not do to be seen in the company of the werewolf, waited nearly fifteen minutes. He rushed throughout the castle and the grounds only to stop where the wards of Hogwarts ended. He then apparated to the front of Grimmauld place and stepped inside. He walked to the kitchen to find Dumbledore sitting at the head of the table surrounded by somber order members. A grief-stricken Sirius Black sat beside them worrying at the ring on his finger.
"Harry, along with five other students, has disappeared." Albus said and Sirius glared at Snape.
"Where is he Snape?!" Sirius cried accusingly and Snape did not respond. He sat pensively gazing through his pallid clasped hands.
"We can't just sit here and hope everything rights itself! Snape warned us that they would try something tonight! Why was Harry not locked up somewhere where he couldn't go wandering off! I thought Hogwarts was impenetrable!" Sirius cried, this time his ire directed at Albus. Snape had, in his usual fashion, pieced everything together eons before everyone else. He was certain that Albus knew as well, but was not voicing such knowledge as in the process he would divulge his secrets regarding the prophecy. Snape watched them bicker amongst themselves for several long minutes as Dumbledore sat silent.
"Albus, you were right." He said aloud eventually and the room fell silent. Dumbledore begged him to continue with his eyes. "But so was I. The prophecy is not another deception which Voldemort uses to manipulate his followers, but a lure to manipulate Potter."
"Prophecy!?" The members of the order gasped in chorus, looking between Dumbledore and Snape. A myriad questions filled the room with asphyxiating noise, only to be abruptly stopped again as Sirius stood and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Stop fucking wasting time! Voldemort could have Harry by the throat, right now, as we all sit here like a bunch of lousy…lousy…" He trailed off as he walked toward the door, shaking with emotion before suddenly looking back to Albus.
"Where would Harry go to find this prophecy?" Tonks asked nervously.
"The Hall of Prophecies." Albus replied and the order members rose.
KatAndMonkey: I'm on the fence with Sirius at the moment. And if it weren't for Oedipus, Lucius Malfoy would be the original BAMF.
