Aberforth was sitting at the table with Cate when Graihagh walked in, a glass of stout in one hand and a punchline in the other.
"...so I come upstairs and the bloke is standing there wearing nothing but a bit of whipped cream over his dangly bits, trying to open the door. Went and locked himself out of his room, see. So I says to him, I'd like to help you out lad, but you'll have to put on some clothes first-"
Cate laughed so hard she sprayed beer all over the table. Graihagh might've cracked a smile but her head ached and she'd heard this one before.
"So he's standing there starkers and threatening to curse my entire family and Griselda Marchbanks walks upstairs..."
Cate gasped for air and Aberforth clapped her on the back and looked up at Graihagh. "Where the hell were you?"
Graihagh pulled her wand out of her pocket and set it on the nightstand. "Nowhere."
"You look like the Hippogriff's breakfast."
"Yeah. Well."
"I s'pose I should get back to the bar," said Aberforth. He stood up and gestured for Graihagh to follow him.
"That's a damn good friend you've got in there," he said, when they'd stepped into the hall. "Terrible thing she's been through. Don't you go taking off again."
"I know. I won't."
Aberforth narrowed his eyes at her in warning and lumbered down the stairs, humming softly to himself. Graihagh went back inside the hidden room and locked the door behind her.
"So which club did you go to?" said Cate, peeling a carrot.
There were times when Graihagh could lie through her teeth and not feel a twinge of regret, but not with her. "The State. I'm sorry."
Cate sighed and chopped the carrot into pieces, rather harder than she might've done normally, like she'd pictured Graihagh's face on it.
"Let me do that," said Graihagh, standing at the table. "You go and rest."
Cate sat down on the mattress with her back against the makeshift headboard. "I love you but you're really stupid sometimes, you know that?"
Graihagh tensed. "I hardly ever do that anymore," she said, much sharper than she'd meant to.
Cate lowered her voice and glanced down, a defensive gesture, as though she was afraid of starting a fight. "Well, that's good."
Graihagh was sick inside at they way she'd snapped at her. No matter how far she ran away from those parts of herself, they always caught up with her.
"You're right," she said, setting down her knife and sitting beside her. "I am stupid. And I'm sorry."
Cate didn't say anything to to this, just picked bits of lint off her jumper and dropped them onto the mattress. Graihagh racked her brains for something to cheer her up. She'd always been a people person; Graihagh could only imagine how difficult it must've been for her to be so isolated the past year.
"Is it alright if I send a message to Milo to tell him you're here?" said Graihagh, knowing he'd want to drop in and see her. They'd always gotten on well; Cate could open him up in ways that Graihagh couldn't.
"Sure," said Cate. She watched the silver crow soar through the ceiling. "I didn't know you could make a Patronus."
"Remus taught me."
"Remus Lupin? You've seen him?"
"Yeah," said Graihagh, buoyed by the way Cate's eyes lit up. "He pops in from time to time, he'll probably visit soon."
"Has Tonks had the baby yet?"
"Not sure. I know she was due sometime in April but I haven't heard anything."
They lapsed into silence again and Cate walked over to her work table and studied the jars and bottles along the shelves. Graihagh didn't really know what to say.
Someone rapped on the door and Cate gasped.
"It's alright," said Graihagh, grabbing her wand off the nightstand. Her own heart was pounding. Remus and Aberforth had their own distinct knocks; this one was different, sharper.
"Who's there?"
"Milo," said a voice at the other side. "I still have a key, remember?"
Graihagh reached for the doorknob.
"Wait!" said Cate. "Ask him a security question."
"Right," said Graihagh. She raised her voice. "What was the first film you ever saw at the cinema?"
"Beverly Hills Cop 2," said Milo. "And I hated it."
"No sense of humour," said Cate, but she was smiling slightly. She hadn't seen Milo in over three years.
Graihagh opened the door for him and he clapped her on the back and wrapped Cate in a hug. "How did you-"
Graihagh caught his eye and shook her head just slightly. Cate might've been ready to talk about what happened, but she doubted it.
"How've you been?" he said.
Graihagh glanced at Cate, who looked relieved that he'd changed tack. "Not bad," she said. She gestured for him to sit down and he settled into a chair as Graihagh and Cate sat down on the mattress with their legs stretched out in front of them.
"How's everything at the camp?"
"Alright, I guess. Fynn's taking it hard."
"What happened?" said Cate, looking from one to the other.
Milo told her about the plot on Remus' life, how he and Fynn and their friends gotten the weapon back to the camp and neutralised it about ten seconds before it was set to go off. Three of their friends had died in the skirmish.
"Holy shit," breathed Cate. "Are you all alright?"
"It's been rough," said Milo. "Fynn blames themself. They were the one who convinced our friends to join in."
"It's not their fault though," said Graihagh, but she understood what little comfort this was. The enormity of it all was hard to comprehend. She hadn't known any of the people who'd died; Fynn had.
"I know. I've been trying to talk them round but..."
They fell into a heavy silence. Milo leaned forward in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest and Cate picked at her jumper again.
"Have you heard from anyone in the Order?" said Graihagh, just to have something to say.
"No," said Cate. Milo shook his head.
They started talking about their other friends and acquaintances then, and an hour had passed, maybe, when, a silver wolf soared into the room, as though they'd somehow summoned him.
"We had a little boy," said Remus' voice. He was happier than she'd ever heard him; almost strained, as though he were trying not to squeal. "Just last week. Teddy Remus Lupin. Dora's doing well. I'll stop by soon with photographs."
The wolf vanished.
In happier times Cate might've grabbed their hands and shrieked, but she just smiled a little and shifted her position so that she was sitting cross-legged on the mattress. "Teddy Lupin," she said. "That's got a nice ring to it. I wonder if he looks like Tonks?"
"That'd be adorable," said Graihagh. Even Milo smiled.
"I say that calls for a celebration," said Graihagh, forcing herself to sound cheerful. She grabbed them each a Butterbeer, and they clinked their bottles together and talked about old times, those few years they'd spent together after leaving school. By the time Aberforth sent dinner up they were actually laughing and it was the happiest she'd felt in awhile, aside from those brief snatches of joy she'd shared with Severus.
"Stay the night?" said Graihagh after they'd had pudding. "Ab would probably give us another mattress."
"Better not," said Milo, stretching out his legs and standing up. "I'm worried about Fynn."
Cate caught Graihagh's eye and mouthed the words, he loves them. Graihagh nodded and smiled and only just remembered the Wolfsbane in time.
She stood up and grabbed about ten bottles off the shelf, packing them into a wooden crate. "I almost forgot. Wolfsbane for the camp."
"Cheers," said Milo as he took the crate from her. "Sure I can't pay you for these?"
"Not on your life, it's ridiculously expensive as it is. Soon as I get back to Mann I'm going to get Owain to give some to the camp for free. He'd do it, too."
Cate's face fell, her mouth open slightly like she'd seen a giant spider crawling down the wall. Graihagh glanced at the wall behind her but didn't see anything.
Cate shifted on the mattress. "You...didn't know?"
Graihagh studied the knots and whorls in the oak planks that lined the room. If she'd gone farther in Charms she might've learned how to make herself some enchanted windows and it wouldn't have felt so closed-in all this time.
"Graihagh?" Cate's voice was infuriatingly gentle.
"What?"
"You didn't hear about Owain?"
"What's he done this time? Did he blow up his lab again?"
Cate stood up behind her and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm so sorry-"
Graihagh shrugged her off. "How would you know? You've been in hiding."
"I heard it on Potterwatch."
Milo cleared his throat. "I heard it too."
Graihagh looked from one to the other, for any sign that they were having her on. They looked deadly serious.
But he couldn't be...he was an expert dueller...
"You probably just heard wrong."
"But he's the only Owain Quirke in Douglas, isn't he?" said Milo.
Graihagh paced the room, rubbing at her face and pulling her hair. She'd spent more time with Owain in the past ten years than almost anyone else. He was strange and soft-hearted and brilliant and she loved him.
This was her fault, all her fault, they wouldn't have gone after him if it hadn't been for her. And her family- "Oh my God, my parents-"
She ran for the door but Milo held her back.
"You can't go now, it could be a trap. He could be waiting for you there."
Graihagh struggled to get loose from his grip. Milo was thin and slight but surprisingly strong. "Let go of me!"
Cate grabbed hold of her other arm. "They're safer if you stay," she said. "What if someone follows you?"
Her words barely registered. "I told you to let me go!"
She fought them until she was too tired to fight them anymore, until her shoulders slumped and they loosened their grip. She jerked her arm away and sank down onto the mattress with her head in the sheet.
Snape dropped the silver thread of memories into the Pensieve and stuck his head in.
He landed upright in a first-floor corridor, right beside his sixteen-year-old self, who was walking beside Lily. She stared straight ahead of her and didn't smile; Mulciber had tried to use the Imperius curse on her friend, and she was fuming about it.
"D'you want to study with me after dinner?" said his younger self, his voice determinedly casual, no trace of his desperate loneliness. He was skinny and slight with a face full of acne and a Black country twang, and no amount of spell-creating could stop people giving him shit.
"I promised Mary I'd study with her," she said, with a slight emphasis on her friend's name.
Snape's younger self had been so absorbed in trying to gauge Lily's mood he hadn't noticed Black and Lupin and Potter walk by. His older self watched them pass. Potter smirked at Black and raised his wand towards his younger self's back. Lupin seized his wrist.
"Don't."
Snape studied Lupin's face. His eyes were red-rimmed and blood-shot like he hadn't slept. His hair was lank and sticking out on end and the lines that ran from his nose to his mouth and across his forehead made him look like an old man.
"What's with you lately?" said Potter. His voice was casual but his face lined with concern, as though he cared or something.
"What do you think?" snapped Lupin.
Black locked eyes with Potter and glanced back at Lupin with his eyebrows slightly raised. "Nice of you to be so open with us Moony, we wouldn't want to have to guess or anything-"
Lupin seized the front of Black's robes and shoved him against the wall, his wand pointed to his throat. Snape's sixteen-year-old self must've been distracted, not to notice this. A pack of seventh-years had stopped to watch, whispering and nudging each other.
Black's face contorted in shock, disbelief. "The hell?"
Lupin's eyes widened, his fury turned to something like shame. He released Black and swept down the corridor, past Snape's teenage self and Lily, who glanced up at his retreating backside but didn't say anything.
Really, it could've been anything that had Lupin so upset. Maybe he'd failed an exam or made a fool of himself in the common room or had a hard time with his transformation. Quite the coincidence though, that he should be so distressed just two days after he'd nearly murdered someone.
They must have talked him round though; he hadn't exactly left them and gone off on his own. He'd crawled right back to them like the desperate little beast he was.
Snape followed his teenage self and Lily into the courtyard. He walked some distance behind, far enough away that he couldn't hear what they were saying, because he already knew.
She'd warned him then, about Avery and Mulciber. She'd told him what they were. This was his chance to leave, and he'd been too thick to see it. No, not thick-trapped. His housemates might've given him shit, but they'd never tried to murder him.
And yet-the things it had led to-the girl gesturing in frustration wouldn't live another six years...
He left the memory, and when he'd placed it back into his head and extracted a few more he plunged back into the Pensieve.
Potter's eleven-year-old self was walking down the corridor with Granger and Weasley, on their way to the Forbidden Corridor. Potter's face was set, determined, the way Lily's used to get when she made up her mind about something; there was no trace of his father's smirk. The scene changed and Potter was walking into the Great Hall with his brand-new broomstick like some big-headed celebrity, the other Gryffindors swarming around him like an entourage. And he was clutching Cedric's body, the night the Dark Lord returned, and he was standing in front of him in his office, and Snape was breaking into his memories, and he was being chased up a tree by his aunt's dog while everyone laughed at him. He was sitting in his office for detention, not knowing he was marked for death. Not knowing that it would all end when he walked into the Dark Lord's arms and offered himself up like a pig for slaughter.
The scene changed and he was walking the grounds with Dumbledore.
"He is his father over again."
"In looks, perhaps. But his deepest nature is much more like his mother's."
Snape pulled his head out, breathing fast, and stared at the wall without seeing it.
May in the highlands was a tossup, weather-wise, and that year it blew in blustery and cold. The Headmaster's study was warmer than his old office but just the same he shivered into his duvet at night, rubbing his limbs against the bed to warm them up.
Sometimes he'd wake in the middle of the night and listen for Graihagh. Reach out his hand, only it'd go right through the place where she should've been and hit the sheet. In his weakest, most pathetic moments he'd fall asleep with his pillow clutched to his chest and pretend it was her. He'd chide himself for it in the morning when he woke no pillow under in his head, shoot out of bed as soon as he heard the alarm go off so he wouldn't think about her more than he had to.
He skipped breakfast that morning and poured himself a massive coffee with so many spoonfuls of sugar he lost count. The work piled higher the closer they got to the end of the school year, and the pile of sweets and crisps in his drawer got correspondingly bigger. If the war didn't kill him he'd probably have a massive heart attack right over his desk. Dilys Derwent, the former Healer, had been dropping hints all term about the importance of vegetables and whole grains and he'd taken to eating carrot sticks sometimes just to shut her up.
"Have a little coffee with your sugar," said Dilys, her concerned eyebrow raise adding a bit of sincerity to this glib statement.
Snape's hands shook so bad he nearly spilled his coffee. Graihagh had said nearly that exact same thing to him once, when he'd gone up to see her. He recovered himself and focused on his work, not stopping until soft golden light filled the windows and the clock struck six.
Some nights he was on edge, the way he'd felt during the third task of the Tri-Wizard tournament, the way he'd felt when Dumbledore had taken off with Potter the year before (had it only been a year? He'd lost all sense of time.) But that night he was calm. As much as he could be with everything that had gone on, with the grief-sick feeling that bubbled up inside him whenever he remembered Graihagh.
He didn't realise how hungry he was until the plates of food appeared in front of him, bangers and mash tonight, with peas and onion gravy. He couldn't remember the last time he actually wanted to eat. He scarcely noticed the nervous energy in the hall, the little whispers that fanned out in waves.
He'd eaten a few bites of his sausage when a bench scraped against the stone and someone let out a shrill whistle. Everything went quiet. Alecto set down her fork and half-stood, shaking her head in warning.
"Harry Potter broke into Gringott's," crowed Boot at the Ravenclaw table. "With Ron and Hermione. They escaped on a dragon."
Alecto slapped her hand on the table and nodded to Amycus, who shot out of his chair and rushed towards Boot, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him into the Entrance Hall. The doors stood open and the hall went silent as Boot cried out in pain, a high-pitched adolescent shriek that burned like hot water. And he wasn't stopping.
Minerva pushed her chair back and looked directly at Snape. This wasn't an accusatory stare, there were no narrowed eyes or furrowed brows. She was asking him to stop it. Because, deep down, some small part of her knew that he wanted to.
Alecto glanced from one to the other and Snape forced his lips into a smirk and stared down at his plate. He couldn't take the risk. He dug his fingernails into his thigh, willing Amycus to stop, tensing up his muscles to keep from squirming in his seat or standing up and going to the Entrance Hall himself. A few minutes passed before Boot went quiet.
Snape picked his brain for some convenient excuse to leave so he could summon an elf to see to the boy, but he was spared the necessity when a few people from the Ravenclaw table shot out of their seats and ran to him. They'd get him up to the hospital wing, and Poppy would sort him out.
Minerva stared at him, trying to catch his eye, but Snape didn't look at her. He knew what he'd see there. Disappointment, fury. Betrayal, though he hadn't promised her anything.
He forced himself to eat a few more bites and retired to his office, where Dumbledore was asleep in his frame. Snape cleared his throat and he woke with a gasping snore.
"There was an incident at dinner," said Snape. "One Mr. Boot announced that Potter broke into Gringott's and escaped on a dragon."
"Did he now?" murmured Dumbledore. There was a note of fatherly pride in his voice and it sickened him, that he could use him this way and still feel something. Cold rationality, that he could understand. This made no sense.
"I suppose there was a Horcrux in the Malfoy's vault?"
"The Lestranges," said Dumbledore, as though they were merely discussing Quidditch teams. Snape slapped his hand on the back of his chair.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? You sent him out on his own with no one but Weasley and Granger and expect him to break into a Gringott's vault?"
"Do not underestimate them, Severus. They've come this far, haven't they?"
"And why do I have the feeling it was by the skin of their teeth?" muttered Snape. He rubbed his forehead. He'd been getting tension headaches two or three nights a week for the past few months.
"Potter may show up at the castle soon," said Dumbledore. "Best to patrol the corridors. And send word to Aberforth, to be on the watch in case they should show up in Hogsmeade."
Snape nodded. He couldn't send Dobby, the way he'd always done; he'd have to send someone else. Kreacher was the most reliable, but there was a chance someone at the Hog's Head would recognise him. He summoned Winky to his office and sent her to the inn.
He was glad of the excuse to pace up and down the castle. He needed to move, needed to release his some of his nervous energy. Miss Parkinson walked past once, on patrol. Draco was slumped on a bench in a third-floor corridor with his head on Miss Greengrass' shoulder. But otherwise the corridors were empty, save for the he ghosts drifted up and down the corridors like sentinels and the portraits watching from their frames. The only sound was the hissing of the torches along the walls. The castle was alert, waiting.
A few hours had passed, maybe, when an invisible scalpel carved itself into his skin. He clapped his hand to his arm and rubbed his arm until the pain stopped.
Be on the watch for Potter. Place guards in Ravenclaw tower.
This could only mean Potter was headed there, but he couldn't imagine why. Unless...another Horcrux. Strange place to put it.
Snape swept down to Alecto's office and rapped on the door.
"Headmaster," said Alecto, inclining her head to him.
"The Dark Lord has requested that someone stand guard in the Ravenclaw common room."
Alecto caught on immediately. She stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind her. "I'm on it, Headmaster."
"If you should catch Potter, bring him directly to me. Remember that the Dark Lord wants him alive and in one piece. Stun if you must, but nothing more than that."
"Right you are, Professor," said Alecto, whether sincere or not he didn't know. She seemed to have warmed to him in the past few weeks; his flattery, he supposed, and his failure to interfere with Boot and the other students they'd beaten recently. In any case, she wasn't about to cock things up by hurting Potter.
She hurried down the hall, her platform boots click-clacking on the flagstones in an obsequious way. Snape returned to his office and paced the floor, his hands behind his back. Almost time. He didn't know how he knew, he didn't know what it would be, but something was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon.
He stopped his pacing and cleared his throat. The portraits, who were awake and whispering among themselves, fell silent.
"I have reason to believe that the Potter boy may enter the castle tonight," he said, his gaze moving along the walls, at the rows and rows of faces. "If you see him inform me immediately."
There was an outbreak of yes sirs and you can count on mes and an anything you ask, your headship sir, from Phineas.
"And should Potter enter the castle," said Snape, raising his voice slightly so as to be heard over their muttering, "the Dark Lord will not be far behind."
The portraits fell silent.
"Do you mean...?" said Armando, leaning forwards in his seat.
"Indeed. There is a chance that the castle will soon be under attack. Everard?"
"Yes, Headmaster?"
"Alert Violet and all the other nearby portraits. Word will spread."
"Yes sir."
Everard vanished from his frame, headed to his portrait on reception room off the Great Hall, and none too soon. Snape's Mark burned and he clapped his hand to his arm. They had him.
"Severus."
Snape looked up at the bright blue eyes that studied him over half-moon spectacles. Dumbledore opened his mouth, eyes sombre and face drooping, his hat slightly askew, an old man and a small, guilty boy. He closed his mouth again and stared at him so long Snape let out an impatient huff. Just out with it already.
"Good luck."
He sounded so final about it. What was he playing at? He turned to leave and the old man cleared his throat yet again.
"What is it now?"
"Thank you, my dear boy."
Snape stared back at him, a thousand emotions coursing through him, none of which he understood. All those years, that was all he wanted to hear...and he didn't want to. He didn't want anyone's gratitude. Much as he disliked his cold scheming, it was something he understood.
Did this mean he was forgiven? That he hadn't damaged his soul? He clung to the door and stared down at the stones and had no idea what to say. He gave him the smallest nod and left the room.
He heard Minerva before he saw her, the clack of her shoes on the stone. Fuck. Not her. Anyone but her.
He concealed himself behind a suit of armour and Minerva raised her wand. "Who's there?"
Snape took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the armour. "It is I."
The boy wasn't beside her, that much he could see, but that didn't mean he wasn't there, he could've been under his invisibility cloak. The Carrows were nowhere to be seen. Everything was a mess.
"Where are the Carrows?" he asked, playing for time, working out a plan.
"Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus," said Minerva. Her voice was cold but strained with something, a sort of sadness, or maybe it was what he wanted to hear.
Snape stepped towards her and studied the space around her for any sign of magic, any vibrations in the air. He could've sworn he heard someone breathing, two people maybe. His mind was a frantic blur. He had to get to the boy, and he had to do it without hurting anyone.
"I was under the impression that Alecto had apprehended an intruder."
"Really? And what gave you that impression?"
Snape raised his left arm. Once, not long after the Dark Lord had returned, his Mark had burned when he'd been sitting with her in the staff room, and she'd put a hand to his arm to reassure him. A small thing, but it had gotten him through the night.
"Oh, but naturally," she said, voice rising with disdain, but that sadness was still underneath, straining the edges of her cold dignity. He didn't hear whatever it was she said after that. Potter was there, underneath his cloak, but how was he to reach him without hurting Minerva? Everything depended on him. He could not fail.
"I didn't realise it was your night to patrol the corridors Minerva," he said, still playing for time, forcing himself to stay calm. The back of his neck was hot and sweat trickled down his back.
"You have some objection?"
"I wonder what could have brought you out of bed at this late hour?"
"I thought I heard a disturbance."
"Really? But all seems calm."
She met his gaze and he stared into her eyes. Legilimens.
Images flashed by like a slideshow. The two of them sitting in her office after Elphinstone died, drinking Scotch. Sitting in the staff room with Hagrid and Sprout, playing cards and giving Trelawney a hard time. Bursting into Barty Crouch's office the night the Dark Lord came back. More images flashed by and he was kneeling beside one of the students, tending to their injuries. Sitting cold as a statue while Boot screamed. And Potter was stepping out from his invisibility cloak in the Ravenclaw common room, his wand raised.
His voice was earnest, sincere, the way he'd spoken to her when they were friends. "Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have I must insist-"
He knew what she was going to do a second before she did it. Knew it would come to this. The strength of his Shield Charm nearly knocked her over and without thinking he extended an arm to help her up. But she righted herself , and before he had time to think she'd transformed a flaming torch into a fiery lasso, meant to wrap itself around him and set him on fire-but surely she knew it wouldn't work, she didn't actually mean to kill...
He flicked his wand and the lasso became a flaming serpent that writhed in the air slowly enough for her to destroy it, and she did, transforming the smoke into swarm of daggers. He forced the armour in front of him just time to deflect them. He wouldn't send them back to her. He couldn't. He would only defend himself. Just long enough to get the boy, he just needed the boy and then they could do what they wanted to him...But did they really want to kill him? Did they hate him that much?
"Minerva!"
Flitwick hurried along the corridor with Sprout right beside him and Slughorn bringing up the rear. This was all wrong, he hadn't meant to fight them.
Flitwick raised his wand and the armour came to life and gripped his arms, trying to hold him down. Why were they doing this?
Snape only twisted free of it in time to shove it back at them and run.
He had to stay alive, he had to speak to Potter, but there was no way he could stay in the castle. He tore down the corridor, yanked open the door to an empty classroom and smashed through the window, and everything was panic and breaking glass and blood rushing in his ears.
He tapped his wand to himself.
Volaro
And he flew through the air, the cold wind rushing in his ears, soothing the cuts from the broken glass. He closed his eyes and he was flying above Cokeworth, above the smokestacks and the alleys and the rows of grey houses. He'd told Lily once he'd find a way for them to fly and they'd be just like Peter Pan and his lost boys.
And he did. Only she was too old by then. But he still flew, a secret that was only for them.
He landed outside the perimeter wall, not far from Hogsmeade. The Dark Lord was waiting at the gates, but there was something he needed to do first.
Graihagh was asleep when the Caterwauling Charm went off. She rubbed her head and sat up on her mattress, her head slow. She'd had too much to drink that day.
The other mattress rustled and Cate stood up and grabbed her wand off the nightstand. "It's him. I knew he'd come find me."
Her words took a few seconds to process. She didn't see how Adrian could've found them, but maybe she was missing something. "How could it be him?"
"Everyone in the Order knows about this room."
Graihagh fumbled for her wand and stood up with her. "But Aberforth would have to give him a key, wouldn't he? He knows not to."
"Yeah. Maybe."
Graihagh pressed her ear to the wall to see if she could make out any voices outside, but she couldn't hear anything. She and Cate stood side by side, wands at the ready, waiting for the creak of footsteps on the stairs. A few minutes passed, and Graihagh let herself hope that it wasn't anything-someone set off that stupid charm just about every week, it seemed. But then, that meant it wasn't Severus either.
She and Cate lay back down on their mattresses, facing each other and talking, each trying to keep the other's mind off things. After awhile Cate closed her eyes and drifted off. Graihagh didn't know if she fell asleep or not. Her thoughts became mixed-up and strange and she was riding her bicycle beside the sea, and light hit her eyes, silver-white like lightning.
She sat up and the silver doe lowered its head and nudged her the way a cat might, an affectionate gesture.
"It's me," said a voice. Severus. "I need you to find Potter. Tell him about Lily. Tell him to come find me." The doe paused, as though he'd wanted to say more. Then she vanished. No explanation, no apology, nothing.
Cate sat up on her mattress. "What-was that...Snape?"
"Yeah. Must've been."
"But why-d'you know him?"
"Sort of. Long story."
"You're not going to help him though, are you? He's a Death Eater, didn't you know? He killed Dumbledore."
The words took a long time to reach her. She didn't know whether to believe them; she didn't know what to think. She'd seen that doe before. She'd walked her back to the inn once, when she couldn't bear to face the Dementors alone. Severus had sent her, he'd known how scared she was. And what was it he'd said? Death Eaters can't make patronuses. But he could.
A voice spoke in her ears, cutting across her thoughts, a voice she'd never heard before, a cold, high voice that wrapped itself around her and squeezed her chest so she could barely breathe.
"I know that you are preparing to fight," it said. Graihagh locked eyes with Cate. Fight?
"Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood. Give me Harry Potter and they shall not be harmed."
Cate clasped Graihagh's hand and squeezed it.
"Give me Harry Potter and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight."
"They'll never do it," said Cate. "They'll never give him up like that."
Graihagh let go of Cate's hand and hugged her arms to her chest. "What do you think?"
Cate gave her a sideways glance. "Do you want to go?"
"To a battle? Fuck no."
"Yeah, me neither."
They sat there a few minutes, tapping their fingers on their arms and staring around the room.
"I'm going to regret this," said Graihagh, pulling on a pair of socks. She couldn't really explain it, but she felt she should be closer to Severus, to Potter, even though she didn't trust what she'd seen.
"I'll go with you," said Cate, throwing a set of robes over her two-piece paisley pyjamas. "Even though it's probably going to be a disaster, I've heard they've got giants and Acromantula fighting for them and if that's true we're dead." She thrust her hands into her pockets. "You wouldn't happen to have any chewing gum would you?"
"Erm...no, I don't think so," said Graihagh. She grabbed a set of robes she'd tossed in the corner and dug around in the pockets. "I've got some Every-Flavour beans. They've been in there awhile though."
She handed Cate a half-empty bag and she popped some into her mouth as Graihagh straightened out the robes and pulled them over her head, thrusting her arm up the wrong sleeve when someone pounded on the door.
"Wake up," barked Aberforth. "The school is under attack."
Cate opened the door for him, chewing furiously on her beans. Graihagh never did understand how she could eat a whole mouthful, with all those different flavours.
"Good, you're dressed," said Aberforth, looking them up and down. "The Order is meeting in the Great Hall. Watch out for Death Eaters on the way."
Graihagh and Cate half-walked, half-ran to the castle, Graihagh so stiff with fear her arms ached. She sensed someone watching her as she walked through the Hogwarts gates, but she couldn't see anyone.
Cate pulled open the oak front doors and they stepped inside, into a throng of students, most of them headed up the stairs. Graihagh breathed in the damp stone and the torch smoke, polished wood and chalk, and it was ten years ago and she was just out for a walk, headed back to the Slytherin common room, or up to the library to study with Cate.
"This way," said Cate, tugging on her shoulder, and she was forced back into the moment. The Order was still in the Great Hall, dividing up into groups. Graihagh spun round and examined every face, but Harry didn't seem to be there. She didn't think so, anyway. She'd only ever seen him in photographs. That was just as well. She wasn't sure what she would've told him, or if she would've told him anything at all. Quite the coincidence that Severus wanted him, when the Dark Lord did too.
But then, only the Order knew about that secret room in the Hog's Head.
"Cate."
Graihagh wheeled and came face to face with Adrian, who'd broken away from his group and stepped towards Cate like they'd just been apart on business. If she hadn't seen what he'd done to her she might never have guessed it of him, with his friendly, earnest face and his mellow voice. She raised her wand but Cate was quicker.
"Stop," she said, pointing her wand to his chest. Her voice was quiet and there was guilt written all over her face but she kept her hand steady. "Don't come any closer."
Adrian put his hands up, palms out in a conciliatory gesture. Of all the times to try to suck her back in. "Cate, please, could we just talk-"
Cate's screwed up her face in indignation. "We're in the middle of a war, you...twatwaffle."
Graihagh was so keyed up with nerves she nearly burst out laughing. Twatwaffle? she mouthed. Cate shrugged.
Adrian moved his hand as though to grab her, but Cate sucked in her breath, readying herself for the incantation. Adrian stepped back. He opened his mouth to say something but someone called his name, and as he left to join Arthur Weasley he glared at Graihagh as though this were all her fault. Graihagh sneered back at him.
"Oi," said another voice, and she turned to see Milo and Fynn, who looked more serious than she'd ever seen them, thinner and paler, with dark circles under their eyes and a jagged white scar from eye to chin. Milo hadn't mentioned it, maybe because he'd been more concerned with how Fynn felt than what looked like a minor injury. Fynn nodded to Graihagh and side-hugged Cate like an old friend, even though they'd only known each other a few years at school. Typical Hufflepuffs.
"We're going out into the grounds with Remus," said Milo, an unspoken invitation to come join them. Graihagh glanced at Cate, who nodded. If we must. Graihagh understood. She wasn't thrilled to be fighting either.
"Yeah, alright. For a bit."
They followed Milo and Fynn out of the Great Hall. Cate nudged her. "I hope this doesn't go on too long, I'm more of a behind-the-scenes type person, d'you know what I mean?"
"I know exactly what you mean."
Cate gaver her a sideways look. "You're not thinking of helping Snape, are you? It could be a trap, you know."
"I wasn't," she said, and this was true. Sort of.
The grounds had that middle-of-the-night stillness, no sound but the wind in the trees. The stars were out and Graihagh stared up at them, wondering what it would've felt to see this place from a great distance, just a tiny ball of light. Severus' words came back to her from all those months ago. I sometimes thought about being an astronaut. Maybe he dreamed about flying to the moon and seeing Cokeworth from far away, nothing but an empty patch of green in the ocean. She scanned the grounds for him, wishing he were standing beside her. She felt so safe with him. And yet...he'd killed Dumbledore. Nothing made sense.
The ground shook with a sharp jolt and Graihagh looked down and thought of earthquakes.
"Giants," whispered Cate. "I knew it."
Graihagh's head jerked up towards the Forbidden Forest and she saw them, sticking out among the trees.
"We're completely fucked," muttered Milo. Graihagh couldn't help but agree.
"I love you."
Everyone turned to look at Fynn. They were staring red-faced at Milo like they couldn't believe what they'd just said.
Milo didn't believe it either, apparently. "Sorry?"
Fynn stroked Milo's face with their thumb. "I just wanted you to know. In case anything happens. Not that it will," they added, in a doubtful tone.
Milo wrapped his arms around Fynn and buried his face in their shoulder and Fynn pulled him closer and kissed his hair. Graihagh wasn't sure whether to cheer them on or fall to the ground in a heap crying because they were probably all going to die.
Cate gave them a bemused smile and turned to Graihagh. "I don't understand a single feckin thing that's happened tonight."
"That makes two of us."
The ground shook again, and shouts rang out from the perimeter wall. Graihagh checked her watch. Five minutes to midnight. She gripped her wand so tightly her thumb ached.
She was running on adrenalin now, everything sharper, clearer, Hagrid's dark cabin and the puddles on the ground and Remus' voice from somewhere behind her, and she wished everything would just speed up so they could get this over with. She stretched her hands out and shifted from one foot to the other. Milo and Fynn had let go and were staring out at the Hogwarts gates, which were standing open.
They rushed forward in a pack, from two different directions, Death Eaters and giants and who knew what else. Graihagh acted on instinct, dodging, running, shooting curses, her only thought survival, her ears filled with screams and shouts, whose she didn't know, she didn't have time to think.
She told herself she wouldn't freeze when she heard Rowle's voice. That she would kill him for what he did to Owain. But psyching herself up wasn't the same as seeing him. She stared up at his wand hand. The giants were bellowing in some strange language she'd never heard before. The sound was strangely musical for such rough creatures.
Someone shoved her out of the way and Milo's voice bellowed an incantation. Jets of light flashed past so close she felt their heat, their charge, like beams of electricity.
Rowle and Milo danced around each other, slashing and shouting, their faces lit by white light and contorted in fury. Fynn rushed in to help but Milo yelled for them to stay back.
"You're such a pansy Selwyn," panted Rowle.
Milo bellowed a curse that missed him by inches and Rowle made a disparaging noise.
"Fuck you," shouted Milo. His voice was thin and strained. "Fuck everything-" he dodged a curse. "You've ever done."
Milo shot another curse and Graihagh and Fynn whirled around on the spot, one eye on approaching Death Eaters, another on Milo and Rowle.
They bellowed their incantations at almost the same moment. Rowle fell first and Graihagh had a split second's relief before Milo fell beside him.
Fynn's shout was a raw, piercing shriek, a sound even worse than Milo's limp body on the ground. They tapped at his face, crying out his name.
"Check his pulse," said Graihagh, whose mind had cleared now that Rowle was fallen, though she kept an eye on him, in case he got up.
Fynn grabbed his wrist but Graihagh was pushed aside by Cate just as a jet of light shot past her.
"Run," she shouted. "We're withdrawing to the castle. Or something, I don't know."
"But Milo and Fynn-" She didn't have time to finish her sentence. Two Death Eaters were advancing on them.
"Should we go for it, d'you reckon?" panted Cate.
"Yeah. Alright."
As one they raised their wands and shouted. "Incarcerous."
One of the Death Eaters went down.
"Incarcerous," bellowed Graihagh a second time. This one missed, but it'd bought them the few seconds it had taken the Death Eater to avoid her.
They retreated to the courtyard, dodging jets of light and falling pillars and Acromantula. Graihagh wasn't afraid of spiders, but the sound of those pincers made her numb and her heart was pounding so hard she thought it'd stop.
She didn't have time to think about Milo; everything was surviving to the next second. She'd just stepped back from a giant when Fynn ran by with Milo slung over one shoulder, limp as a wet towel. Graihagh and Cate followed them into the Entrance Hall.
"Think he's still alive," panted Fynn.
"Take him to the Great Hall," said a girl Graihagh didn't recognise, with a long plait down her back. Fynn followed her into the Entrance Hall and Graihagh was about to follow when she saw a head of messy black hair and a pair of glasses that reflected the light off the torches. Harry.
And she knew, without knowing how or why, what Severus really was. Knew the crushing guilt he must've felt, because she'd felt it too, and her friend hadn't died. Knew who had saved her and Milo from Rowle, when she'd been trapped in the garden shed at Malfoy Manor.
She called Harry's name, but he didn't seem to hear her; he was calling after Hagrid. She waved Cate on and followed him out of the Entrance Hall.
He was some distance away, running pell-mell towards the Whomping Willow, surrounded by silver light. Graihagh ran after them and only just stepped out of the way of a giant in time to avoid its foot. By the time she ran past it they were disappearing down a hole at the base of the tree. She'd heard rumours about a secret passage there, but she didn't know anyone who'd been inside it.
The sky went black and ice numbed her skin and Fynn was screaming for Milo.
"Expecto Patronum."
Cate's silver Corgi charged towards the Dementors, leaping at their chests, forcing them to scatter. And Graihagh ran.
A/N: Thanks so much for the faves/follows and to PearM21 for the review! The next chapter is finished, so I leave you hanging too long :)