Phœnix Files #6: A New Light
Hannah Abbott was enjoying herself. Hogsmeade weekends were always an especial treat, and as usual, she was happily situated in Honeyduke's, getting several pounds of candy for herself and her housemates: sugar quills, fizzing whizbees, luminous lollies, and so on- she even got cockroach clusters for that annoying Ravenclaw boy who always called her a duffer, (Susan said he had a crush on her, but Hannah was of the opinion that if he wanted to go out with her he should make an effort to be nicer).
Speaking of Susan...
"What's up, Hannah?"
Hannah whirled around. It was Susan, shopping bags draped over her forearms. "Not much, Suzie," she found herself replying. "I got all the sweets I want, but now I don't know what to do."
"We could go to The Three Broomsticks,"
"I...well...I overheard 'Liza say Nott was going to meet her there, and I'm avoiding him. Plus, I'm not really all that hungry."
Right on cue, Susan replied, "You know, that could be your opportunity..."
"I do not have a crush on Theo."
"You called him Theo."
Hannah blushed pink. "Just leave it!"
"I'm just saying. He is kinda cute in a snotty, I-know-everything way..."
"Shut up!"
"Ok, ok." Susan took the opportunity afforded by the sudden silence to start unwrapping a package of ice mice. "What do you think about the whole thing with the Gryffs getting ninety points from Snape?" she said at last, when the silence was threatening to become awkward.
"I don't really know what to think. I mean, I thought it was all something someone made up until I saw all the rubies in their house hourglass. Then I sorta just thought, maybe it was some other teacher. But I mean, he wasn't bad in class, you know. I'm sorta worried he's been like imperiused or blackmailed or something."
"Yeah, same," was Susan's response. "I mean, I kind of like being treated as if I halfway have a brain in class, though. And you know he helped Mandy Brocklehurst when her calming drought was green. Normally he's just like 'you're a Ravenclaw, figure it out',"
"Yeah. And I've never seen him smile before, either. He actually looks nice."
It was at that moment that she heard pops of apparation, and a scream, from the street outside. She and Susan looked at each other.
"We've got to get back to Hogwarts!" Susan said. She might have said more, but that's when they heard Professor Snape's silky voice raised above the terrified clamor in the candy store.
"Hogwarts students, over here!"
Not knowing what to do, Hannah and Susan hurried over. Professor Snape was already talking: "Hogsmeade is being attacked, as I'm sure you can perceive. Everyone under 17, which I assume is all of you, must head back to Hogwarts at once; there is an emergency tunnel in the basement of Honeyduke's that will take you straight to Hogwarts. Prefects, you're in charge of leading everyone back and rounding up stragglers. I have to stay to fight. Go on, hurry up!"
At that moment, the front window of Honeyduke's exploded in a shower of glass, which fell among the baskets of sugar quills and dragonbreath divinity like so much macabre sugar candy, and several of the girls screamed. Without looking to see if the students were obeying, Severus turned and crashed through the front door, wand in hand, accompanied by the cheerful tinkling of the bell.
Hannah hesitated.
"Hannah, what are you doing, c'mon!" Susan called, already halfway to the stairs.
"What about Professor Snape?"
"He's a teacher and he has a DADA mastery; he'll be fine!"
Hannah half turned towards the stairs. Then she shook her head. "I want to fight. It's like Harry told the DA last year; it's our responsibility to help!" And with that, she also took off towards the door.
Susan hesitated a few moments after the door had swung shut behind her friend and then followed.
Outside, the streets of Hogsmeade were a riot of students and citizens running, masked and plainclothes Death Eaters flinging unforgivables at close quarters, and way fewer aurors than there probably should have been. Hannah gulped. Then, as a bludgeoning jinx shot dangerously close to her face, she remembered the DA and began to fling stunners in quick succession at the Death Eaters that ran by, trying to keep an eye out for other Hogwarts students. Nearby, she saw the plump, motherly Professor Sprout protecting a group of third years, and one of her year mates, Blaise Zabini, sniping at the terrorists from the dubious shelter of a stack of crates in front of the Hog's Head.
And then she saw Snape.
Everyone who had taken Professor Snape's potion classes would say he was scary. Well, except for the Slytherins, whom he favored, and the Ravenclaws, who wouldn't admit it. But this was the first time Hannah had seem him when he wasn't hunched over a cauldron or booting hapless Gryffindors out of broom closets after curfew, and she had to admit he was good.
He fought so fast he was nearly a blur, curses of every color blazing from his wand, robes fluttering about him like an oversized bat, and before long, the ground was littered with Death Eaters, bleeding, covered in welts, sporting new appendages or missing them, and on and on, as Professor Snape shot off creative combinations of hexes. Hannah herself managed to stun five.
That is, before a masked Death Eater with frizzy black ringlets and voluminous dark robes swooped into the intersection. She flung a lazy disfiguring hex at Hannah, knocking her back into the wall with its force. She might have done worse than that, but at moment, Snape's voice had the Death Eater spinning around with a start.
"Bella!"
The newly named "Bella"- was that Bellatrix Lestrange?- gasped in shock.
"S-Severus?"
"You're lucky I am not inclined to torture," Professor Snape said quietly.
"Bella" actually audibly gulped. And that was when Snape hissed "Infecta!"* and she crumpled, convulsing. Snape glanced around, seeming to take in the carnage, and lowered his ebony wand, wand hand shaking ever so slightly. It was over, at least in this part of town.
Hannah walked slowly towards him, not wanting to startle him. "Professor? Are you hurt?"
Professor Snape spun around. For a moment he simply stared at her, very human emotion crossing his face: frustration, tiredness, and maybe, just maybe, something else. Then he seemed to snap out of it.
"Go back to Hogwarts," he stated, without a trace of his usual vitriol.
She might indeed have gone, but before she so much as moved Professor Snape's face froze, becoming transfixed with horror. He stared into the distance with glazed dark gaze, wobbling on his feet. Then his eyes rolled up and he sank back unconscious. What was happening!
Worried now, Hannah ran over to him, shaking him by the shoulder, saying "Sir?" She was about to call someone when he gasped and began stirring, and she sat back on her heels.
"Are you ok, sir?" Hannah repeated louder.
"Dementors," he gasped, struggling to his knees, his normally emotionless face overcome with emotion. "Dementors in Hogsmeade." A few moments passed, and the man seemed to get a hold of himself, and noticed she was there. "WHY ARE YOU NOT BACK AT HOGWARTS, MISS ABBOTT!"
Hannah flinched. "I couldn't leave you!"
Professor Snape stared at her for a moment, eyes widening. Then he rose unsteadily to his feet, still looking at her with an awkward, wide-eyed gratitude that made her almost sorry for him; as if no one has ever said that to him before. "I-thank you, Miss Abbott." He said, a peculiar tone in his voice. Then: "Come. You should be back at the castle now; it's not safe."
"What about you, sir?" said Hannah.
"I-I'll live, I was simply taken by surprise. Go on-"
Hannah turned slowly, whipping her head around in shock as she heard his next words: "And Miss Abbott? Fifty points to Hufflepuff for saving a teacher."
Hannah stared after him as he bolted up the street, faster than she'd ever seen him move before. And then her Hufflepuff loyalty surfaced, and she followed. What happened after that would be burned forever into her mind.
The street was full of dementors, filling the air with their syrupy, cloying chill, and Hannah was very glad Harry had taught the DA how to cast a patronus, even if hers was incorporeal. Death Eaters were around, to be sure, but none of them seemed to be in any condition to cast, what with the aura of the dementors, and so Hannah followed unpursued, protected by her silver patronus mist.
And then her heart nearly stopped. There were three Gryffindors in the center of the road, one of them Harry Potter, who was lying unconscious on the cobblestones, while Ron Weasley, still half conscious, levered himself up on his elbow in an attempt to use his wand. Hermione Granger stood over them, the bookish Gryffindor's face twisted in anger as she tried to fend off two Death Eaters. Hannah raced foreward, but Snape had already gotten there.
"FENRIR, WALDEN, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY STUDENTS!" he roared, and then, as a dementor bent over the struggling Weasley, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Nothing happened for a solid minute, and Hannah wondered if he could even cast a patronus; then a blaze of aetherial golden light exploded from the tip, coalescing into a blazing golden doe, which bounded towards the dementors surrounding the outnumbered Gryffindors and tore them to shreds of black, slimy cloth and fragments of bone.
Hannah could only stare at him in mute awe. It seemed that there was more to her dour potions professor than she could ever have imagined.
* In Latin, undone or finished
