59
Severus and Hermione dashed down another corridor, gasping for breath, shaking and terrified.
"This way - no, see, there it is -"
The little hummingbird ahead was flitting away from them, carrying out its caster's command to patrol the corridors, completely oblivious to how desperately they were chasing it. Hermione's otter had been cast and lost and cast again, lost again. Severus had tried the spell, failed miserably, and it was he who had caught sight of the hummingbird, he who had dragged Hermione after it as if their very lives - their souls - depended on it: this one little point of brightness among all the malicious terrors around them.
Lily was gone. Gone. Dead or alive, he didn't know, but she was gone. She had screamed at her Patronus to stay as the Death Eaters dragged her away, as the Voldemort himself bound her and the Lestranges flung her over a broomstick and took off, leaving Hermione and Severus staring after them, too terrified to shoot spells at their retreating forms for fear of hitting Lily instead.
She had commanded her doe to stay with them, and with the people they had freed, but those people had scattered, fleeing in terror from Voldemort and his burned, burning eyes. The doe had darted here and there, trying to protect all of them, but by the time Severus and Hermione had torn themselves away from the crumbling edge of the hole, the doe was out of sight, the rescued prisoners gone, and they had been alone, without protection against the Dementors that had swarmed toward them, backing them up to the edge of the crumbling hole.
It was Hermione who had saved them then, clutching Severus's hand and casting her little otter. It had lasted just long enough to get them away from the deadly drop, before winking out. Again she had cast it, and again it had lasted long enough to get them away - but now it was gone, the Dementors were gliding hungrily after them, and Alice Longbottom's wretched, precious little Patronus was zipping away too fast for them to follow.
It was a nightmare - indeed, it felt like a nightmare, with Severus's every step seeming weighed down by forces outside of his control, his body weary, his salvation always just out of reach. He felt like he was wading through icy water, clawing his way forward as if he could drag himself away from the Dementors. Beside him, Hermione was sobbing; he didn't know if she was trapped in some memory or if she was just scared, as he was, scared of what could happen to them, scared of what would happen if they couldn't keep up with this Patronus.
"Ex-expecto…" Hermione whispered, but couldn't even finish.
Severus, already gripping her hand, squeezed hard. His heart was racing faster than the hummingbird's wings could beat, in direct contrast to his ever-slowing legs, his stumbling feet, his frozen thoughts.
This was a disaster, an utter disaster. How could they have failed so completely? All their plans seemed absurd now - splitting up, freeing prisoners - their little teams - how foolish could they have been? They had isolated themselves, rendered themselves vulnerable, and Severus had seen more than one Order member dead on the ground, a dozen prisoners had been Kissed, and the Death Eaters were nowhere to be seen - gone, probably, gone like Lily, like Voldemort.
And now he and Hermione were alone, helpless, with no idea what was happening in the battle - if battle it could be called - or where their rescued prisoners had gone, or how to get out, or how to survive.
The hummingbird darted to the side, through a narrow archway, up a flight of stairs. Severus dragged Hermione toward it, panting and frantic, only to draw back with a wordless cry as Dementors got there first.
Darkness fell. The hummingbird was long gone, flitting off to save some other souls, but not theirs. Severus managed a weak Lumos spell, but his hand was shaking, a thousand terrible memories wrenching his mind this way and that as he struggled to Occlude. Beside him, Hermione was trembling wretchedly. He thought she might be close to fainting. In desperation, Severus dragged her into a cell - its door was open, he thought they might have freed someone from here earlier - and slammed the door shut.
"They have a k-key," Hermione whispered.
He nodded. He could already see one of the Dementors gliding forward, its repulsive hand slipping into its robes. Severus clutched Hermione closer, glanced behind them at the cell. There was no window, no means of escape. They were trapped in here, until the Dementors came for them. And then they would be trapped in a worse prison, he supposed, in whatever chasm of malice and torment served as a Dementor's belly.
"Expecto P-Patronum. Expecto Patron… Expecto…" Hermione sobbed again. "I'm s-sorry. I'm sorry, Severus…"
"It's not your fault," he whispered. His voice was shaking. "I can't even cast the bloody thing."
"Our m-mouths," she whispered. "I c-can…"
But she couldn't. He could see that perfectly well. Her hands were shaking, and so were his, far too badly to Transfigure anything, certainly not their faces. If only the hummingbird could come back - then they could Transfigure themselves, they should have bloody done that to begin with. But no - they had trusted Lily's doe, trusted that she would be with them. They had never imagined Voldemort striding out of the shadows to duel them all.
Severus knew they were lucky not to have died then. Then again, death would have been infinitely preferable to this…
The cell door swung open. Hermione was gripping his arms so tightly he would have bruises - not that he would be around to feel them. He pushed her behind him, even as she tried again, "Expecto Patronum!"
This time a sliver of light emerged, like faint starlight clinging to the air. Severus and Hermione gazed at it as if it were the most beautiful thing they had ever seen, a precious, fragile strand of hope.
"Expecto Patronum!" Hermione said again, and the sliver of light grew stronger, still formless, still fragile, but enough to give the Dementors pause.
Severus pushed Hermione toward the door of the cell - if they could just get out - if they could just run -
But one of the Dementors reached out for the thread of light and brushed it aside like a cobweb. It vanished.
Again, Severus pushed Hermione behind him, though there was nowhere to go. They were backed into a corner between the stone wall and the bars. But Severus could stand in front of her, give her a chance… a few seconds more…
The Dementor that had brushed the Patronus aside reached for him now, sharp, gnarled fingers grappling at the front of his robes, and he couldn't help it; he turned his back on the Dementor with a frightened gasp, as if that would help, as if the creature couldn't simply pull him around.
Hermione's eyes were wide and terrified, their warm darkness flickering into cold fear. Severus felt the Dementor's hands touching his robes, gripping, dragging, and instinctively reached out to grip the bars on either side of Hermione's head, his wand lying flush against the bar in his right hand, still glowing dimly with his pitiful Lumos.
If he could just hold on - the Dementors couldn't get to them like this, facing each other, blocked into their corner -
His fingers were cold and numb against the icy bars, and already Dementors outside the cell were trying to pry them apart. Behind him, hands kept pulling, more than one Dementor now, their hands at his neck, his shoulders, his waist, even gripping his hair.
"No," Hermione whimpered, then, with a sudden look of grim resolve, whispered again, "Expecto Patronum!"
It was just a little flash of light, but the inhuman fingers in Severus's hair loosened, and he pressed closer to Hermione, close enough that his nose brushed her forehead for a moment.
She looked up at him in surprise, and he felt a moment of self-loathing, of utter shame that he couldn't protect her, that he was what he was, that this was the end.
Then he saw gnarled hands slipping between the bars to grip her hair, to stroke her face, to turn her toward them, as if they could suck her soul out even through the bars, and in a moment of pure panicked horror he let go of the bars with one hand, grabbed her roughly by the side of her head, pulled her away from the Dementors, and kissed her.
He wasn't aware of ever having made a conscious decision to do so. It wasn't romantic or sweet, it definitely wasn't rational, but somehow in his Dementor-clouded mind he seemed to have come to the conclusion that if he kissed her, they couldn't.
Probably untrue. But it was too late for such considerations now.
And the kiss was having an effect he hadn't intended. As her lips pressed hard against his in a way they hadn't when they'd kissed to seal their marriage, a jolt of heat shot through him, like a hot jagged knife cutting through the Dementors' cold, painful in its intensity. For a moment, he could feel his fingers fully, and could tighten his grip both on the prison bar in his one hand and on her face in the other. He could feel one of her hands gripping his robes, could feel it slide suddenly around him to press into his back, pulling him closer. And he could feel her mouth, so cold, but getting warmer by the second, kissing him back, kissing him hard, and without really meaning to he pressed his whole body against her, pressed her against the bars, as if he could shield every inch of her from the freezing darkness around them.
His Occlumency shields were beginning to fail, but there was happiness there, happiness that burned brightly for a moment before he slammed the shields back into place, shielding it, hoarding it like a treasure, refusing to surrender even the smallest glimmer of it to anyone but himself - and her - was she as warm as he suddenly was, was she happy?
Was he twisted and sick, to find happiness in a moment like this, to feel such a burning torturous pleasure when there were Dementors literally trying to tear them apart?
Had he simply gone mad?
She broke away from him suddenly, and he felt an echoing break inside of him, a fracture in his shields that left him naked and raw for one abhorrent second. Then she met his gaze, her eyes absolutely burning, and whispered triumphantly, "Expecto Patronum!"
He didn't have to turn to look to know she had succeeded. The Dementors released him at once, and warmth of a somewhat more wholesome kind swept over him as the Patronus drove the creatures back. He saw it wind through the bars of the cell, saw it force the Dementors outside to release them. He pulled Hermione back into the cell, and she kicked the cell door shut.
They were once more trapped within, the Dementors without. But they weren't alone now. The silver otter twisted and twirled through the air in front of the bars, something distinctly spiteful in its mocking little dance.
Hermione, too, had something delightfully spiteful about her in that moment, in the curve of her triumphant grin, in the flush of her cheeks beneath her sparkling eyes. Severus couldn't take his eyes off her. He wanted badly to kiss her again.
When she looked away from her otter and met his gaze, he simultaneously wanted to vanish into the floor and sweep her off it. He was embarrassed, despite the indisputable evidence that his kiss had not been unwelcome, but he was also devilishly pleased with the fact that he had made her look like this, he had made her happy enough to cast her Patronus.
For a few moments, nothing else mattered. Just the look in her eyes, and the fact that she was drawing closer and closer and -
"Well, well. What have we here?"
Severus and Hermione jerked apart, both raising their wands. Severus knew he should have recognized the accent, but it was Hermione gasped and whispered, "Dolohov!"
"Do I know you?" Dolohov asked curiously.
He had a wand. That was the first thing Severus noticed - somehow, this until recently imprisoned Death Eater had acquired a wand.
His gaze slid to Severus. "I do know you… traitor." He glanced at Hermione again. "Funny. This isn't the Mudblood you betrayed us for, is it?"
"Don't call her that!" Severus snapped.
"Why not? Am I spoiling the mood?" Dolohov grinned. "Your other Mudblood got married, I heard. So you had to settle for… this."
Severus was angry, but he was also afraid. Dolohov was older than him, more experienced, and inarguably a good duelist. He hadn't been in Azkaban long enough to have wasted away; it was one of Hermione's tips that had gotten him arrested, although Severus hoped Dolohov wasn't aware of that. And Severus and Hermione were trapped in this cell, shielded from Dementors, but certainly not from a Dark wizard.
Dolohov's gaze followed the otter as it wound through the air. "How sweet," he said, in evident disgust. "The Mudblood's, I presume?"
Beside Severus, Hermione was trembling again, but whether in fear or anger was difficult to say. Like Severus, she seemed to be all too aware of the situation they were in; they obviously should have run when they had the chance.
Even as he thought it, another set of footfalls echoed down the corridor. Dolohov stepped to the side, out of sight.
"Ah, Mulciber… and Avery, hmm, you're not looking too well."
Severus felt his heart drop. He and Hermione had turned Mulciber and Avery in as well. And they, at least, would suspect him… it had been only days after his own escape (or release, as the Ministry had framed it) from Azkaban that they had been arrested.
In fact, it was possible that all the Death Eaters suspected him. Maybe they thought that was why the Ministry had let him go - because he had turned them all in.
He glanced at Hermione, and found her casting wards across the width of the cell, a wall of them that he couldn't see but that he could feel. Her confidence, which had been so shaken by her repeated failed attempts to conjure a Patronus, seemed to have returned in full. Her expression was one of the utmost concentration, and Severus couldn't help admiring her for a moment.
But there was no time for that now. They needed a way out.
Dolohov, Mulciber, and Avery all stepped into view then. "See what I found?" Dolohov said with relish.
Avery was, as Dolohov had remarked, not looking well. Mulciber, on the other hand, looked much the same as ever, albeit angrier.
"Snape," he spat. "You filthy traitor."
Unlike Dolohov, they did not have wands, but Mulciber seemed to have a sword, and Avery had a short knife, perhaps because he was in no shape to wield anything as heavy as a sword.
"You turned us in," Avery said, looking like he wanted to be angry but really just drawing close to Hermione's otter. "You betrayed us, Severus."
"Joke's on you, now, isn't it?" Mulciber said. "Now you're trapped in a prison full of all the Death Eaters you betrayed. Well, not all… I think some of them already escaped with your little Mudblood, didn't they?"
"He's got a different Mudblood now," Dolohov said, nodding at Hermione.
"Last one was prettier," Mulciber said.
"I like her Patronus," Avery said mildly, watching the otter.
Mulciber and Dolohov both glanced at him in disbelief and disgust, but Avery was clearly very unwell - feverish, perhaps, or maybe he'd been hit with a spell of some kind. Or maybe, like Severus, he had been injured before he was arrested, and his wounds, left untreated, had festered.
Or maybe Azkaban had simply broken him.
"Well, say goodbye to it," Dolohov said. "Avada Kedavra!"
His spell, aimed at Hermione, struck her ward and exploded across the wall of spellwork in a burst of fizzling green light. The walls on either side of the cell cracked apart; an ominous rumbling from the ceiling was the only warning they had that it was going to collapse.
"Run!" Hermione yelled, grabbing Severus by the arm and half-dragging him toward the gap in the cell wall to their right. The Death Eaters raced that way as well, but stone was falling all around them - not just in the cells but in the corridors - and dust had begun to cloud the air.
"Confringo!" Hermione shouted, even as somewhere in the dusty darkness Dolohov yelled, "Avada Kedavra!"
Severus shoved Hermione down as the second emerald spell wheeled over them with terrifying intent. Hermione's spell went wide, and took out not the wall but another chunk of ceiling. The Killing Curse hit the wall behind them, blasting it apart and showering them with more debris.
"Go, go!" Severus yelled, pushing Hermione even as she pulled him after her. There was a Kissed body lying half-buried in stone in the cell they crawled into, but Hermione ignored it entirely, hastily yanking Azkaban's key out from under her robes and reaching through the bars to shove it into the lock. Then they were running, the otter swerving through the air around them, the sound of shouts and furious pursuit just behind.
"Crucio!" Dolohov yelled, and Severus, though he dodged, didn't dodge fast enough. The curse hit him with devastating force, tearing his nerves apart, wrenching his body and mind and voice out of his own control.
"Incendio!" Hermione's voice screamed from somewhere else, and Severus saw a flash of fire, heard an enraged scream. The Cruciatus Curse stopped, but even as Severus staggered gasping to his feet, another curse struck him square in the back.
For a second, he couldn't breathe. He collapsed forward, trying to gasp for air, but his lungs weren't working - there was something in him -
"That's what you get for stabbing us in the back!" Mulciber snarled.
And Severus realized he hadn't been struck with a curse. It was a knife - Avery's knife, probably - which Dolohov must have spelled to fly at him.
He coughed, and tasted blood. With enormous effort, he dragged in a shivering breath, so vastly meager compared to what he actually needed that it was almost more painful than not breathing at all. Somewhere near him, he could hear Hermione's voice - "Severus? Severus!" - but he couldn't see her. His face was pressed against the floor.
Hands gripped him, and he knew they had to be hers because they were so small. She pulled him up, and he staggered with her, not really believing that he could move, but unwilling to disappoint her. He coughed again, and this time actually saw the blood spray out of his mouth, glinting like rubies in the light of the Patronus.
He gagged, then tried to breathe rather than vomit.
"Avada -"
"Oculi Acidum!"
Severus had just a second to understand what Hermione's curse was going to do before Dolohov let out a terrific shriek.
Mulciber's voice was barely audible as he spat, "You Mudblood b-"
Sectumsempra! Severus thought, waving his wand wildly, and someone - Avery, he thought, not Mulciber as he had hoped - screamed in pain.
Then the knife in Severus's back twisted, with sudden, inconceivable pain. He couldn't scream or even breathe. He simply dropped, too heavy for Hermione to support, coughing blood out onto the floor.
He could feel his heart in a way he had never felt it before, could feel its strong pounding force in his chest turn to a spasm of desperation. He was dying, he knew. The knife wasn't in his heart, but it was in his lungs - in one of them, at least - and he wasn't going to last, not like this, not unless they could get out of this.
How, he didn't know. He couldn't even move, except to involuntarily convulse as choking coughs seized his frame.
He could see the lights of spells, could hear shouts that echoed weirdly in the dust. There was a rumbling in his ears, but he didn't know if it was the crumbling fortress or some parallel collapse in his own mind. There was stone falling, dust and chips of stone scattering everywhere, frantic flashes of red and green and a dangerous violet that he thought might have come from Hermione, all interspersed with the calming silver of her otter, steady as ever, unwavering even in the face of defeat.
Then the other lights died, and the rumbling stopped, and the silver was all he saw, soft and kind and fading.
Dumbledore found Alastor Moody lying in a pool of blood, Dementors gathered around him. One of the phoenix Patronuses swept ahead of Dumbledore, wings spread and talons extended, and the Dementors fled, leaving Moody to lie pale and lifeless behind them.
For a moment, Dumbledore feared the worst. He had already seen many Kissed that night, some of them strangers, some acquaintances, and one or two friends. He was grieved, grieved as he had only been a handful of times in his life, grieved to the point of despair. They had defeated some of their enemies, but many had escaped. They had prevented the loss of some lives, but had lost many others. Aurors and Death Eaters, prisoners and Order members alike had died tonight, and the full scale of the damage had yet to be discovered. Most of the Order was, in fact, missing, and Dumbledore was still searching for them now.
He thought of the children he had saved, and felt a moment of bitter self-doubt. He knew that it would have been wrong to leave them, and yet… the consequences of his actions were clear to see. Death. Soulless bodies that were worse than dead. Voldemort had indisputably triumphed tonight, as he had in Godric's Hollow, though on both occasions his full plans had been thwarted.
How could Dumbledore remedy this? The war had been progressing slowly for years, an inexorable conflict he had stymied again and again. But now, in these past two weeks, his control over Voldemort's progress had been shattered, and his allies were paying the price.
Where had he gone wrong? Had this end been inevitable, always?
He suspected, as Moody did, as many in the Order probably did, that the so-called Peverells, Severus Snape's "uncle," and that startling force of nature Hermione Granger were all from the future – though how they might have circumvented the laws of time-travel, he did not yet know. Their very presence suggested that the future must be worse than this – infinitely worse – to justify their taking such an astronomical risk. Did they lose the war? He could only assume so. Had he himself played a role in their return? If so, why would they not confide in him now? If not, what had been his fate in their intolerable future?
The questions had weighed on him, tonight more than ever. Had they changed the fate of the world for the better? Or had their presence here wrought ruin beyond what they had intended? Had all of those who died or were Kissed tonight suffered the same fate in their timeline? Had they averted a worse tragedy, or condemned innocents to a doom they should never have suffered?
All of this darkened Dumbledore's thoughts as he knelt beside his friend, detecting both the stirrings of life and of a soul. With haste, he cast the charms that would heal Alastor's head wound, at least until a qualified Healer could tend to him. That Alastor was alive was a small miracle; those who had fought with him had been less lucky.
There were two Aurors dead, a man and a woman, Linus Williamson and Cornelia Greengrass. Dumbledore had taught them both.
The third Auror had suffered a worse fate. Dumbledore could feel the void within him, and the sight of his empty eyes gazing out from beneath a mane of faded hair sent a chill through him, though he had seen many such eyes tonight.
Scrimgeour, Dumbledore recognized. Rufus Scrimgeour. Hardly a friend, but a worthy Auror, by all accounts.
And now, here he slumped, wasted and empty. Or, rather, here his body slumped. Where Scrimgeour himself was, Dumbledore did not care to contemplate.
Severus glided over heaps of cracked stone and dust, pausing every now and then to check a corpse for a pulse, or a body for a soul. Thus far he had found no one living – no one whole. The fortress of Azkaban had suffered greatly in the attack, and most of the cells were open and empty now, though whether through intent or accident was impossible to say. Severus hoped most of the prisoners had escaped the Dementors, and yet he was beginning to wonder, too, how many violent prisoners – aside from the Death Eaters – might have taken this opportunity to escape. Had this battle released Wizarding Britain's most dangerous criminals back into the world?
He had always been frustrated with the Dumbledore of his world for not doing more to prevent the Dark Lord from releasing the Death Eaters in the year following his return to physical form. Now he saw clearly why Dumbledore had not wanted the Order involved; he could not help wondering why this younger Dumbledore had not foreseen the same consequences. Why he himself had not foreseen them.
The Dementors of his world had not gone without their victims during the war. Once they had abandoned the Ministry, they had roamed freely, feeding on Muggles, and, yes, occasionally Kissing them. There had been nothing the Order could do to stop them – nothing Severus could do, even after he had become the Dark Lord's most trusted servant. Severus thought it likely that many more had suffered the Kiss in his world than had suffered it here, tonight, and yet…
These were wizards.
It should not have made a difference to him, yet it did. Not because he thought wizards were more deserving of life and soul, but because there were so few of them. The marriage law had, after all, passed for a reason, even if he found the concept hideous. How much more difficult would it be now to convince the Wizengamot to revoke the law? Most of those who had been Kissed tonight were prisoners, of course, but Severus had found dead Aurors and Order members as well.
Their population had suffered a horrific blow tonight, just as it had during the battle in Godric's Hollow. No such battles had taken place in Severus's world, and though the cumulative total of Voldemort's victims had vastly exceeded these numbers before his ultimate defeat, the fact that they had sustained such heavy losses twice in a matter of as many weeks was devastating.
To the world, to the country, to these people, who were the alternate selves of people he knew. He had hoped that his presence here might improve this world, but it was difficult to feel as though he had done anything but ruin it in a different way.
Was it just inevitable? That war would destroy them all? Was there no escape from this, no alternate path that could see them all through safely, well and whole and happy?
If he started again in yet another world, could he find a better way? Or did each course lead inescapably to suffering and horror?
Severus was not naïve. He understood that the world was a dark, hideous, ruinous place. He did not believe in happy endings, or in endings at all – for as long as wizards were alive, for as long as humans were alive, there would be devastation and despair. But surely, surely, there was a better way? Some way to excise the Dark Lord and his influence from the world with surgical precision, to leave all else unharmed?
There was of course the possibility of traveling deeper into the past of another world and preventing Tom Marvolo Riddle's conception altogether, but would that really solve the problem? Or would another Dark Lord simply arise in his place, motivated by the same social and political tides, yet perhaps unhindered by Riddle's psychosis and temperament – perhaps so powerful and so appealing that Wizarding Britain would embrace him or her with open arms?
Severus could imagine a thousand different futures, all built on one small act, and knew there were millions more he could not imagine or predict, each terrible in its own way, each full of inevitable tragedy.
He had been playing god, but the web of human fate was vastly out of his control.
And yet, he wanted to control it. He wanted to intervene here, there, everywhere, to fix everything. He knew Potter, Miss Weasley, and Miss Granger felt the same. It was why they had stayed here, why that had committed themselves to this disastrous course. Knowing what they knew, they could not choose not to act. It was wrong.
But this – Azkaban in ruins, dozens Kissed or dead – this was wrong, too.
There had to be a way to get it right.
Severus recognized, as the frustration gnawed at the edges of his mind, that he could easily be driven mad by such thoughts. That a man could spend his life trying and trying and trying, in world after world after world, never succeeding, always losing, even when victory had supposedly been achieved. How long would it be before the people of those worlds ceased to have meaning as individuals? How long before he really was playing god, manipulating the people he had once cared about as incarnation after incarnation of their alternate selves died, pawns in a game they didn't know he was playing?
Because it would be a game, then. How to win, without losing a single piece? Each unsuccessful attempt discarded into the wasteland of his memory as he abandoned those worlds for new ones… Would he even be human, then? Would he even grieve, or feel remorse? Or would his emotions dull into the frustration of a player who loses one game but is determined to play another – or worse, would he learn to enjoy the game, to thrill at the challenge, to view every loss and tragedy as an opportunity to improve his own skills and chances the next time around?
That he was capable of imagining such a future for himself disturbed him. He felt a sudden urge to find his younger self, to look into his face and remember that he was indeed an individual, irreplaceable and precious, and that no other Severus Snape could or would be like him, not in an infinity of worlds.
Instead, he found James Potter, sitting at the edge of ruin, the cold night air gusting in around him, with neither a Patronus nor a Dementor in sight.
Severus felt a weight settle in his chest that had nothing to do with Potter himself, and everything to do with the scene around him, the gaping tear in the fortress wall, the fog clinging to the edges of the broken stone, the expression of utter emptiness on the boy's face. Something terrible had happened here.
And as for Potter… Had he been Kissed?
No. Severus could see the boy's gaze sweeping aimlessly through the night, as if searching for something. A man without a soul could not search. And yet some great despair had clearly fallen over him.
Severus's feeling of disquiet grew.
"Potter," he said sharply.
James looked at him, to his relief. The boy was not so far gone that he could not hear and respond. At the sight of Severus, something flickered briefly in his eyes, both fear and distaste. Then the emptiness fell over him again.
"She's gone," he said.
There was no need to ask who. It was obvious, in every line of Potter's face.
"What do you mean, gone?" Severus asked, trying to repress the feeling inside him, which was both more and less intense than he would have expected.
James looked out into the fog. "I think they took her."
Severus felt a moment's relief that Lily had not been Kissed, then horror as he considered what fate might await her, then grim determination. He would find her – of course he would find her.
He would have expected Potter to feel the same as he did, or even more, that he would be burning to tear the world apart to get to her. But here the boy sat, motionless and bereft of everything, seemingly even the will to feel.
"Where are the Dementors?" Severus asked.
"A hummingbird came and drove them off," Potter said indifferently. "For a little while, anyway."
Severus felt a strange pang of unease that the only thing standing between James Potter and a Dementor's Kiss had apparently been one of Alice Longbottom's seriously overtaxed hummingbirds. "And your own Patronus?"
Potter pointed out into the fog. "I asked it where Lily was, and it galloped away. I couldn't follow it. I don't have a broom." He looked close to tears suddenly. "And Padfoot - I think they have Padfoot, too."
Severus grimaced. So the Death Eaters had taken hostages. Or, if not hostages, then victims. Tonight had not gone as Voldemort had planned, but it had gone more in his favor than in his enemies', and Severus suspected Voldemort would consider this a triumph. He would want to celebrate.
"Come on, Potter," Severus said. "The battle's over. We need to locate the others and discuss our next move –"
"What for? They're dead, aren't they?" Potter said, still with that sheen of tears in his eyes.
"I think it is likely they will be alive for at least a few more hours," Severus said. "Perhaps more, if the Dark Lord believes they could be useful."
Potter looked at him like he wasn't sure whether Severus was trying to be cruel or helpful.
"You are wasting time," Severus pointed out. "Get up."
Potter was finally starting to get angry, and looked very much like his son often had in Severus's class, resentful and hateful. Severus was impatient. Potter's weakness was perhaps understandable, but every second counted, something the boy seemed incapable of getting through his unpleasant little skull.
"Now, Potter."
"What do you care, Snape?"
It was the first time Potter had openly acknowledged what Severus knew he knew: that he was an older version of the boy Potter and his friends had tormented. It was a strange moment, and Potter almost seemed to regret it; Severus eyed him coolly, undisturbed by his adolescent attitude.
"In case it had escaped your notice, we are allies," Severus said. "Distasteful though we both undoubtedly find it."
It was satisfying to see the flicker of fear in Potter's eyes, to know that the boy recognized, however unwillingly, that Severus was now far more dangerous than the skinny, lonely child he had once been.
"I don't trust you," Potter said defiantly.
Severus rolled his eyes. "I neither expect nor desire your trust, Potter. I need you to get up. Or would you like me to explain to your wife and worthless friend that you sat here pitying yourself while they suffered unimaginable agony?"
Potter's anger was heading toward full-blown fury now, and Severus cut it off before Potter could do something idiotic. "I suggest you save your tantrum for the fight ahead. The Death Eaters are far more deserving of your ire than I am."
Potter visibly struggled with the urge to say something nasty (perhaps one of Severus's own hexes), but finally reigned himself in and stood up.
"Come," Severus said, ignoring the old instinct not to turn his back on Potter and wheeling away to resume his search of the fortress. Several corridors, cells, and stairwells had been demolished in the fighting, and Severus's memory of the prison's layout was somewhat thwarted by the detours that necessitated. Slowly, he and Potter picked their way through the rubble, making note of the prisoners who had been Kissed, but finding a distressing lack of other Order members. It wasn't until they had searched another five blocks of cells that Severus held up his hand to stop them both.
Ahead, they could hear scraping, cracking, and something that might have been sobbing.
"Stay," Severus ordered.
He strode forward gracefully, while Potter, predictably ignoring him, followed somewhat less quietly behind. Whoever was the source of the noise must have heard them coming, for the scraping and cracking stopped suddenly.
"Do not be alarmed," Severus said. He could see the light of a Patronus ahead, and was therefore reasonably certain he was not approaching an enemy.
"Professor Snape?"
It was Hermione Granger, and he knew even before he got a decent look at her that she was distressed – it was only in such moments that she reverted to that formal (outdated) mode of address. Thank Merlin it was Potter and not some other Order member by his side to hear it.
"Yes, it is I," he said, sweeping forward. The girl was covered in dust and blood, and stood before a section of collapsed stone, which Severus deduced at once she had been trying to move.
"You have to move it," she said at once, in a wavering voice. "Please. Severus is on the other side, he's bleeding…"
Potter looked like he was about to make some remark, but Severus forestalled any conflict by waving his wand and watching the rubble slowly, carefully begin to rearrange itself, supporting the stone above it so as not to cause further damage.
Miss Granger immediately rushed forward, only to stop, gasping, then quickly coughing in the dust.
"He was here," she said, still coughing, but also perhaps crying. "The blood…"
There was a very dusty bloodstain on the floor, smeared as if the body it had bled from had been dragged away. A second otter Patronus hovered above it. Anguish seized Granger's face.
"There were D-Death Eaters," she choked out. "We dueled them, but one of them threw a knife into Severus's back. I tried to keep dueling - Dolohov and Avery were down - they're over there - but Mulciber - he took Dolohov's wand and brought down the whole ceiling - and I c-couldn't -"
Severus felt a sinking feeling in his chest, which was inexplicably and yet perhaps appropriately worse than what he had felt when Potter had told him about Lily.
"They took him!" Miss Granger cried. "I was stuck on the other side and they took him!" Her tear-filled eyes searched his face. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry –"
"It was not your fault," Severus said automatically.
"They took Lily, too," Potter interrupted, in a distinctly accusatory tone. "Wasn't she supposed to be with you?"
Granger's tears began to fall. "She was - oh, James, I'm so sorry - she was, but then Volde- I mean, You-Know-Who, he was there, and he - he took her. We couldn't stop him. We tried!"
"You failed," Potter said, then abruptly he aimed his wand at a chunk of rock and blasted it apart. "We all failed! How did this happen?"
"We have to find them, we have to go after them!" Granger cried.
"And how are we supposed to do that?" Potter snapped.
Severus was impatient with both of them, with Granger's tears, with Potter's accusations. "When it became apparent that many of the Death Eaters had escaped, I concealed one of Miss Granger's coins in Bellatrix Lestrange's pocket and allowed her to flee. Assuming Miss Granger's spell works – which I am certain it does – we can locate Bellatrix, and presumably the other Death Eaters and their victims."
Miss Granger's breath audibly caught in her throat. Then she launched herself at him, mess of dust and blood that she was, and threw her arms around him, sobbing.
"Miss Granger!" he said sharply, remembering with a pang how she had hugged him at his birthday party.
"We have to go, we have to go!" she exclaimed, springing away from him and wiping tears away from her filthy face. "The spell – I need the parchment for the spell –"
Though Severus knew time was pressing, he also knew that the situation here needed to be resolved first. "We need to assemble the Order, Miss Granger. Where are the prisoners you rescued? Or were you unable to rescue anyone?"
"No, we were, we were, but they all ran away! When V- when You-Know-Who showed up, they all ran! Lily sent her Patronus after them, but I don't know where they went. Severus and I were separated from them…"
"Then we need to find them," Severus said. "And the others, the rest of the Order -"
"But Lily -" Potter began.
"At present we believe there are three hostages," Severus said, rounding on him. "What if we are mistaken, and there are fewer, or more? What if, having rashly acted on unverified assumptions, we inadvertently condemn others to torment and death because we did not confirm their safety beforehand? You have obviously deduced that we are not from your own time. Perhaps it would interest you to know that in our timeline, your precious Padfoot died because your son engaged in just such a reckless endeavor. And forgive me, Potter, but do you not think assembling our allies prior to embarking on a rescue mission would be wise? Or did you intend for the three of us to face every escaped Death Eater and the Dark Lord himself without assistance?"
Potter grimaced at him, but didn't argue.
"Communication is essential at this juncture," Severus said. "As such, Miss Granger, may I suggest we make use of your coin?"