Chapter 87 - "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
Draco had almost returned back to bed.
He'd almost climbed back onto the warm and comfortable Hospital Ward mattress.
He'd almost tucked himself back in under the blankets and let Madame Pomfrey give him some more essence of dittany and her pain-dulling potion on her next round.
He'd almost not dragged his shirt on over his still aching, bandaged body. He'd almost left his jet-black blazer off his hunched shoulders. He'd almost kicked off his slim, dark, leather shoes and left his wand in the small storage cupboard at his bedside.
But he hadn't.
And if he hadn't, he would never have seen Circe enter the Room of Hidden Things that night.
Even then, he thought about turning back. Returning to the Hospital Wing for one more night's peace. If only for the soothing words and Calming Drafts that the Professors gave him. His run-in with Potter had left him bloodied and beaten, but it had given him an excuse to stop his incessant panicking… his desperate searching… his fruitless plotting….
He couldn't work on the Vanishing Cabinet whilst he was in Hospital, after all. He didn't need to write letter after letter of disappointment to his Mother whilst he was recovering. Madame Pomfrey forbade all activities in her Ward apart from bedrest and light reading, and Professor Snape had sent an owl to let his Mother know of what had happened anyway…
He had almost enjoyed his time in the Hospital Ward, if only for the small bit of respite it had given him. He could almost pretend that he was a normal boy recovering from a bad scrap in that time… Not a Death Eater of the Dark Lord… Not His would-be assassin…
In the days after he had taken a direct hit from Harry's "Sectumsempra", he had slowly begun remembering what it had been like to feel normal. To not be plagued by a near-constant feeling of hopelessness and terror. To sleep through the night without spending most of it gazing up at the sky through a telescope. To not feel the scornful, hateful eyes of so many people upon him.
Perhaps he should have goaded one of those people who looked down upon him into a fight sooner. Maybe not Potter, but the Longbottom boy perhaps, or the air-headed one he saw sleepwalking in bare feet most nights. He could have picked upon one of those students who called his father "Azkaban scum" or mumbled under their breath when he passed by, and then got himself something minor enough to land him in the Hospital wing before now. Being in the Hospital Wing would have meant that he wouldn't have been left alone for too long with his own thoughts. He wouldn't have spent the days and the nights flitting through the school in a fearful haze. He wouldn't have felt sick to his stomach each time he went to sleep with another day's failure under his belt.
Even the sectumsempra, excruciatingly painful as it was, was no match for the gut-twisting fear that had seized his body when he found himself crying and hurling his stomach up in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. And that had happened most nights for the past few months… He'd watched himself in those bathroom mirrors become drawn and gaunt and eaten from the inside out by the mission Voldemort had bestowed on him. And with each staggering step he took towards failure, he felt a part of himself disappear down the drain. Like a man condemned to death row, forced to take each agonising step towards his doom, staring his death in the face. His mother's death too. Perhaps his father's as well, if the Dark Lord ever released him from Azkaban. They called the electric chair a mercy, and Draco would almost have chosen a merciful end like that when compared to the slow, burning sensation of doom eating his mind up.
So when Potter's curse had leveled him, he had been glad that he'd been taken out of it all. That he'd had something to occupy his thoughts other than the seeming inevitability of his failure. And perhaps when he'd put his shirt and his jacket and his shoes on that night he'd been considering what he'd do to the Vanishing Cabinet when he saw it next. Burn it, maybe. Smash it to pieces. Then maybe he and his mother could go into hiding for a while…
And then he saw Circe.
She disappeared into the Room with a backwards glance into the deserted Hogwarts halls. Her eyes were silently screaming in a language that was known to him: the language of someone who was afraid but determined. Draco lingered for a while, waiting in that small, dark spot that had concealed him from her sights. His eyebrows inched together as he thought.
Did she know something he didn't? She'd mentioned before that she knew of the Cabinet, but how much exactly? Why was she snooping around it at this time of night? And why… why did she have the same look he'd seen on his own face every time he'd looked in the mirror of Myrtle's bathroom?
He almost watched himself approach the door to the Room from outside his own body. The small part of him that wanted rid of all of this awful business screamed at him to go back to the Hospital Wing and wait for morning to come. But like a specter, doomed to live out the moment of their demise on repeat for centuries, he approached the door and slipped inside.
There was a hissing, scraping sound rattling around the huge, cavernous roof of the Room of Hidden Things. He knew that sound. He'd spent hours with that sound ringing in his ears. Until just the mere sound of stone moving against stone made his teeth set on edge. Anytime Pansy collected the class's chalkboards and stacked them on top of one another, or whenever Blaise would drag him out into the fresh air to go walking over the pebble beach at the Black Lake's side… He was reminded of that sound then. In the silence, he heard the echoing sound of the Vanishing Cabinet's tiles being moved around…
He kept himself hidden, not daring to breathe too loudly as he followed the noises of the tiles. He'd spent so long fiddling with each one that he could almost recognise the constellations by the sounds they made as they slotted into place. He knew which ones tended to stick, and he knew which ones had a habit of falling off.
"Gaaah!" He heard Professor Smith cry out in frustration.
Taurus. He thought. Never wants to stay in place…
But he knew the Professor's efforts would be fruitless. He'd wasted hours on the Cabinet already, putting the tiles in every combination and positioning he could think of trying. Surely the Professor wasn't just going to rock up one evening out of the blue and make it co-operate when he'd spent months trying to coax it into life.
And then he saw a bright burst of light shine out into the gloom.
Specks of glittering stars shone over the rubble and flotsam abandoned in the Room. If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought it may have been a disco ball…
But it wasn't a disco ball. He could have navigated his way through the Room of Hidden Things to his Vanishing Cabinet now with his eyes closed. He knew exactly where the light was coming from. And he felt a deep, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
A disappointment that he felt in his very bones.
A bitter, resentful sadness in his guts.
And as he poked his head around a large pile of half-broken desks, his eyes confirmed what his ears and his heart had already told him: Circe had made the Vanishing Cabinet work.
Her face was illuminated in the softly twinkling stars that adorned the Cabinet's front. Stars that he had never made illuminate. Stars that he had stared at for hours, trying to will into life. Hoping and praying that the endless, sleepless nights sat in front of the Cabinet's doors would pay off eventually. That he could do all that the Dark Lord had asked of him, that he could restore his family's favours, that he could help to get his father out of prison. All of those hopes had now been burnt away in the shining light of the stars on the Cabinet's doors. Light that illuminated Circe's face, not his. And now she would receive the congratulations for.
He felt close to tears when she swung the Cabinet's doors open and he heard voices from the other side of the link. He heard the braying cry of his Aunt Bellatrix, followed by several other male voices that could have been any number of Death Eaters who had been hanging around his home this past year. But the voice that made him crack in two was his mother's. He heard her question to Circe, firm but afraid:
"Where's Draco?"
"He's still in the Hospital Wing." Circe replied. "I thought it best that we leave him out of this. Take him out of the equation."
"Good." Narcissa said flatly. "I thought this night might never come." She added.
Draco's heart sank. Even his own mother had thought that he wasn't capable of solving the Vanishing Cabinet. And perhaps she was right; perhaps all he was ever going to be to his parents was a disappointment. The Malfoys: the eternal disappointments of the Dark Lord's ranks.
"He tried, Narcissa. He tried so hard. But he wasn't quite right…"
"Enough of your idle chatter!" Bellatrix screeched. "It's time! Cissy, summon the Wolves! We're going back to school!"
He heard Narcissa's footsteps retreat away, deeper into Malfoy Manor as his Aunt Bellatrix lapsed into an unhinged, crooning laugh.
"And where is the Snake? The one who promised that he'd be here to see that this task is done…?" Bellatrix asked with a sneer.
"Severus is keeping watch on Dumbledore. He'll meet us at the top of the Astronomy Tower." Circe said through gritted teeth. "Nice brooch, Bella." She added.
"Rodolphus brought it back from Europe for me." Bellatrix said, touching a hand to an amber jewel pinned to her left breast. "After he and his brother had made sure that my traitor sister-in-law wasn't going to receive any help. That necrosis curse would have eaten her alive by the time whoever left this thing got to her." She said with a cruel chuckle, giving the amber brooch a hard flick with her black fingernails.
The Astronomy Tower… Draco thought as a spike of something desperate lanced through him. I can still make them proud. I can still kill the old man…!
He did not waste any more time. Draco turned on his heels, putting his back to the Cabinet, and sprinting from the Room as fast as he could. He left the amassing Death Eaters to flow into Hogwarts, spilling into the school like a poisonous infection seeps through a healthy body.
He ran, and he kept running, all the way until he had reached the foot of the Astronomy Tower. He gritted his teeth and began the climb, his legs shaking and his heart pounding. The thrum of fear in his guts intensified as he heard the voice of Dumbledore echoing from the rafters above. He couldn't quite make out his words, but they were hurried and frantic… He drew his wand, his hand shaking in front of him. As he climbed the last of the steps, he saw the Headmaster with his back turned to him, looking out over Hogwarts just as a brilliant flash of green light burst in the sky before him. Draco gasped as the figure of the Dark Mark emerged from out of the inky black night. The vicious green skull hovering, leering, looming over the tower, spitting out the writhing snake from its jaws and staring menacingly down at Dumbledore. Triumphantly. Proudly.
Draco didn't know who had cast it, but it meant that the Death Eaters had well and truly announced that they were here. There was no hiding now. Draco raised his wand and pointed at the Headmaster's back.
"Expelliarmus!" He uttered shakily.
Dumbledore wheeled around just in time for the wand to go flying from his hand. Draco stepped forwards, his hand still shaking as he pushed his wand tip into The Headmaster's face. His jaw was clamped tight, his eyes shining with tears. Dumbledore looked back into Draco's face with open-mouthed surprise.
"Good evening, Draco." He uttered, his voice betraying no sign of distress.
"Who else is here?" He asked, turning his head to glance around the Tower. He couldn't see anyone, just the still mechanical rotors of the Great Telescope behind him and the old man in front of him.
"Up here? No one." Dumbledore said matter-of-factly. "But I trust I will be expecting more of you soon." He added, inclining his head towards the Dark Mark in the sky.
"Yes, there are Death Eaters in your school tonight." Draco replied, his voice shaking. "And they slipped in right under your nose. They'll be here soon, Dumbledore… I… I came ahead… I have… I have a job to do."
"I see. Killing me?" Dumbledore asked bluntly. Draco flinched as if he'd been struck.
"H-How do you know?"
"Please..." Dumbledore said with a small chuckle. "The necklace… The poisoned whiskey. Do you think that I wouldn't know who was responsible for almost killing two of my students? You've been trying, with increasing desperation, all year to kill me Draco. But forgive me, they have all been quite feeble attempts and it makes me wonder whether your heart has truly been in it."
"It has been in it!" Draco shouted. "I've been trying all year! And tonight… tonight I'll-"
"Draco…" Dumbledore interrupted softly. "You are not a killer. Killing is not as easy as the innocent believe."
"I can kill you… I must kill you!" Draco hissed, the tremor in his hand growing. "I must! For my father… The Dark Lord…My Aunt said He chose me. He trusted me!"
"You are more a fool than I thought if you believe Voldemort trusts anybody but himself."
"He does! He trusts my Aunt…" But even as he said it, a memory of Bellatrix screaming on the floor of Malfoy Manor, wrapped in a cruciatus curse, flashed through his mind. He shook his head violently, trying to shake off the awful memory. "And even if he doesn't… What options have I got? I've got to do it! He'll kill me! He'll kill my whole family if I don't…"
"And that is precisely why you have been allowed to get away with your actions until now, Draco." Dumbledore continued. "But now you have the chance to choose correctly. We can help you. The right side can help you…"
"And why would you want to help me?" Draco spat. "After what I've done…To Katy and the Weasley scum. What I'm going to do…"
Dumbledore looked at Draco for a beat. He saw so much of Severus in him. Heard his almost exact echo in the words Draco had just used. It reminded him of a rain-scattered hillside. A meeting co-ordinated by Mcgonagall. A desperate man who believed he wasn't worth saving, but had risked his life to save others. A time long ago when Snape had gone begging to him to save Lily, James and Harry.
"Because I knew someone like you, long ago, who initially made all the wrong choices… but eventually let the love in his heart guide him to the light." Dumbledore said evenly. "And you've had a wand pointed at me for the best part of five minutes now, Draco. And you haven't killed me."
Glass shattered around Circe as she watched Bellatrix blast every last shard out of the windows of the Great Hall. She flung up her hands in front of her face as it rained down around her, concealing her grimace from the other Death Eaters. Yet she gasped as she felt a sharp slice of pain cut across her right palm. Circe held her bloody hand out infront of her face and saw a superficial but bright-red cut across her palm. A small shard of window glass stuck out of the cut and she pried it out of her with a hiss. Flinging the glass shard to the ground, she searched around for a quick bandage and found only the tattered remains of the Gryffindor flag on the floor. She tore a small red strip from it and bound it around her hand. Bellatrix gave a great roaring cackle to the enchanted roof, ecstatic in her destruction. Circe winced each time she heard a copycat Death Eater smash or destroy something else in the distance. Destroying her home.
And the Hounds aren't even here yet…
Severus came swooping into the Great Hall like a great black bat. Circe almost felt relieved to see him.
"Severus…"
"Your hand. Are you-"
"I'm fine. Just a small cut."
He nodded solemnly.
"Who cast the Mors Morde?" He asked irritably.
"Gibbon." Circe replied, nodding her head towards a Death Eater who was currently kicking glasses off the Hufflepuff table.
"Then we need to work fast. With that in the sky, The Order will be summoned here soon. If they're not already on the way here already." He spoke gravely.
"Are they back?" Circe asked.
"I'm not sure. I had to leave my post when the Dark Mark illuminated the sky. Just in case any students came wandering outside and saw me…"
"Well we need to get up there now!" Circe exclaimed.
"Severus!" Bellatrix shouted, fixing him at the tip of her wand. "I thought you were crawling out of your hole to meet us at the Astronomy Tower?"
Severus gritted his teeth and glowered at her.
"I came to lead you all to the prize." He responded levelly.
"Oooh goody!" She squealed. "Alecto, Amycus, this way!" She said to two more Death Eaters who were tearing down the House flags from the roof. "Yaxley, Rowle, Gibbon, you stay here and keep the kids entertained… if they come back for a second helping. Kill 'em if they're giving you too much grief."
Bellatrix strode from the Great Hall and began the journey up to the Astronomy Tower, Severus and Circe falling in behind her.
"Kids?" Snape whispered to Circe when Bellatrix had begun smashing and breaking things again as she walked; Pulling portraits off the wall and setting fire to each tapestry she passed.
"Some old members of the DA tried to stop the invasion. I saw Neville, Ginny, Luna-"
"Anyone hurt?"
"Not yet. They fell back and regrouped when they saw this lot weren't messing. Rowle fired a killing curse straight at Ginny's head. Would have hit her too if she hadn't moved out of the way just in time…"
"Do you think they'll be able to hold their own and counter the advances of fully-grown Death Eaters using the killing curse?" Snape whispered in her ear, concern pulsating in the deep notes of his voice.
"I hope so." Circe replied with a fretful frown. "I hope I taught them well enough."
She prayed with everything inside her that her duelling sessions in the Room of Requirement long ago would save them from harm. She tried pushing away the thoughts of Neville's dodgy curse-forming, or Ginny's over reliance on one type of jinx, or Luna's spatial footing problems. All the issues she'd picked up on during her dueling lessons with them. Perhaps this time they would be better. More experienced. Not the headless chickens she'd seen fighting outside the Room of Requirement with Umbridge and her cronies.
Please God, let them all be alright…
Severus was the first of them to summit the Astronomy Tower, followed swiftly by Bellatrix and then Circe and The Carrows. They found Draco there already and Circe's heart sank. She'd also hoped that Draco would be left out of this sordid night. That if events were set in motion by her then she could spare him of being directly involved in a man's murder. She could not allow him to take Dumbledore's life. She would not.
"Dumbledore cornered, wandless and alone! Well done Draco!" Amycus said breathlessly, the last of the stairs summited.
Alecto laughed cruelly at her brother's side
"I told you he would do it." Bellatrix declared proudly, placing her hands sharply on Draco's shoulders. "He has honoured our family. He has done as the Dark Lord commanded of him!"
"Yeah, but he ain't actually done it yet, has he…" said Alecto, pointing at the Headmaster.
"Alecto and Amycus." Dumbledore said, spitting their names out as if they were slurs. "I cannot say that I'm pleased to see either of you. Exile did not treat either of you kindly, it seems."
"Likewise old man!" Spat Amycus. "Look at you! You look ancient! What happened to you, Dumby?"
Amycus was right, Circe realised. Dumbledore looked like he'd been through Hell and back. Much more paler and drawn than he had looked before setting off with Harry that evening. Whatever had happened in The Cave, Circe knew that it must have taken a toll on Dumbledore for him to look so… weak.
"Oh, just old age." Albus replied swiftly. "You might be lucky enough to see it too. One day."
Amycus scoffed and spat at his feet.
"Talk talk talk. That's all you ever did." He mumbled. "Come on Draco. Do it!"
No one seemed to notice just how much Draco's hand was shaking. How much his eyes were screaming in agony. No one but Circe. Her heart beat at a staggering rate, dread seeping through every vein in her body. The boy was inches away from becoming a murderer. One bad choice away… A choice that she'd tried to spare him from. She looked imploringly at Severus, begging him to intervene. To make his decision. But he kept his eyes downcast, away from her.
And then the howls came from the courtyard below. Circe's blood turned icy cold and she rushed to the Tower's edge to peer down at the cacophony of feral noises now drifting up to them from below.
"The Wolves are here…" Bellatrix said with a sickly smile.
"Fenrir." Circe stated flatly. Her veins thrummed with fear.
She watched helplessly as a pack of half-crazed half-animals went tearing through the clocktower courtyard. Fur and fangs and claws. Nightmares incarnate.
"Letting a werewolf pack loose on a school? On innocent children?" Dumbledore asked with a tsk.
"Shocks you does it, old man?" Alecto asked derisively.
"I cannot pretend that it doesn't disgust me. And yes, I am a little shocked that even you, servants of Lord Voldemort as you are, invited them, of all creatures, into the school where his friends live…" Dumbledore said, gesturing at Draco.
"My… my friends…" Draco said weakly.
Another surge of noise drifted up from the courtyards below. This time, a whoosh of spells and voices. People crying out battle curses roaring over the top of the Wolves' snarls.
"Shit." Amycus growled. "The Order are here."
Despite what Severus had said earlier to her, about what would happen to she and him both after tonight, her heart still soared when she saw Tonks and Remus and Moody and all the others begin to emerge in the battle raging below her.
"Alecto, Amycus, go help out the Wolves." Growled Bellatrix, and the two twins left without a word of protest.
Circe turned her attentions solely back to Draco. Back to the Headmaster still stood wandless and powerless before him. She tried to look Severus in the eye, to silently impart to him that he had to act soon if he was going to fulfil Albus's request of him. Otherwise, she would do it. She'd promised Dumbledore: if Snape didn't kill him, she would.
Circe had never performed the killing curse before. She wondered what it felt like. Did you need rage in your heart whilst you did it? Or could a killing curse be performed with love? With mercy?
"Come on, Draco… Kill him!" Bellatrix whispered in her nephew's ear.
Draco's bottom lip quivered. His eyes filled with sorrow and fright and his hand continued to shake. Circe's fist clenched around her own wand, trying to prepare herself to step in for the boy, but as she took a tentative step towards Draco, her eyes widened.
Fuck… she thought as realisation struck her like lightning. I can't do it. The Unbreakable Vow…
Dumbledore and Circe shared a horrified look and for a blink of a moment panic flashed in the Headmaster's eyes.
I can't… she screamed internally at him. I can't do it. And Albus stared back at her with the look of an abandoned child. Small and afraid.
She wanted to reach out and lay a comforting hand around Albus, to tell him that it would be alright and that he did not have to be afraid in his final moments. But the eyes of Bellatrix were on her. The carefully planned and discussed death that Dumbledore had arranged was falling apart. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't show mercy to Albus and end his life. There could be no backups or plan B's… not from her.
Circe glanced back to Severus and this time he caught her eye. She slowly held up her right hand to him, the hand he had used to make his pact with Narcissa.
You promised… she tried to impart to him through her eyes. You promised to step in and fulfil the task if Draco cannot.
"Come on, Draco! Do it!" Bellatrix roared in his ear, her impatience growing.
You fool, Severus Snape… Circe thought as tears welled in her eyes. Why didn't you let me make the Vow with you? I could have spared you this if you'd let me.
Severus narrowed his eyes at Circe, showing her his confusion, but then his features softened as realisation struck him too. His black eyes flicked to Draco and then down to his own hand. The hand that bore the Dark Mark. The hand that had clasped Narcissa's in that long ago day in Spinner's End. Could he raise that same hand to kill? His flesh had already been marred by one poor decision of his, that long-ago pact he'd made with the Devil. Somehow he couldn't shake the image of his knuckles becoming tattooed like the men his father had gone drinking with down the Malt and Shovel. He'd see them in the old pub when his mother had been brave enough to send him in there to try and retrieve Tobias for the evening. There was a man who his father had been friends with; a big, burly man who had the letters "E.V.I.L" tattooed onto his knuckles. Trev, his name had been. Another coffee packer who worked in the factory, like most men in Cokeworth did. His fingers too had been stained dark brown, like his father's were, but it was the blue-black ink Sevreus remembered. That word staring back at him when Trev's fingers were curled around a pint glass. His father had told him once that Trev had done time inside for armed battery, and he'd get Trev to lay into him if he didn't keep his mouth shut about school and magic. When Severus looked at his own hand, he could feel those same four letters etching themselves into his skin. Marking him for what he believed he was. Or what the world would see him as if he went through with Dumbledore's killing….
Evil.
"Bellatrix! We have a problem!" Came Amycus's voice from the Tower's stairwell. "We need to get outta here. Gibbon's dead and Fenrir's going mental…"
Circe gasped and glanced down into the raging battle beneath her. She could still hear the snarls and the shouting. Curses of red and green sailing through the air. Faintly on the breeze, she could hear a name being called out frantically, again and again, more of a scream than a cry:
"Bill…! Oh God…Bill…!"
She looked to Severus for comfort or to express her concern, but when she glanced up from the battle, he wasn't where he once was.
"Take him. Get out of here." Severus said in a low voice, seizing Draco by the sleeve and shoving him at his Aunt.
Draco let out a small sob as he lowered his wand and was thrown into the clutches of Bellatrix. Severus moved to face the Headmaster with a face as solemn as a tombstone. He raised his own wand to him and paused.
Circe held her breath. The world seemed to still. Even the battle below quietened for this moment. For the moment Snape hesitated…
"Severus…" Albus breathed. "Severus, please…"
The utterance made Circe's heart break. To Draco and Bellatrix it was little more than an old man pleading for his life, but to Circe… she knew what that "please" truly meant:
Please, Severus. Save me from a slow and painful death. Have mercy on me. Please kill me…
"Avada Kedavra."
A flash of green light.
Searing into her eyes.
So fearsome and bright that she had to look away.
And when Circe looked up from the crook of her arm, Dumbledore was gone…
"Go!" Severus barked at Bellatrix and Draco.
Bella began to laugh again, slow and deliberate and cruel. A banshee's shriek in the desolate black night. They slipped away into the darkness as Circe stood, staring at the spot where Dumbledore had been, utterly shell-shocked.
She flinched as a hand clamped around her wrist.
"You too." Severus stated monotonously.
"What?"
"We'll need to flee. Both of us." He said calmly. Circe was almost shocked by how calm he looked for having just taken someone's life. "We may have been able to stay here if that idiot Gibbon hadn't cast the Dark Mark as soon as his feet touched Hogwarts ground. But now The Order are here… they'll know immediately that it was you and I."
"I… I don't…" Circe spluttered, reeling in shock.
"Circe! Listen to me very carefully." He said, grabbing her shoulders firmly. "We'll need to flee here tonight. Go into hiding until Voldemort can put his own men in charge. Manipulate the Ministry and the Aurors into leaving us alone."
When she didn't answer him, he grabbed her wrist and began dragging her down the Astronomy Tower's steps.
They were halfway down the tower when Circe's senses returned to her.
"Sev… Sev!" She said breathlessly, tugging on his firm grip on her.
"What?!" He answered a little shortly, only glancing back at her briefly as he pulled her onwards.
"Is he… is he really…?"
"Yes."
"But… where did he-"
"Off the top of the Astronomy Tower." Snape answered curtly.
"He...fell?"
"Yes."
"Sev!" she said again, more forcefully than before. She pulled him to a stop and he turned to face her. After a pause of silence she said quietly to him. "Are you alright?"
There was another pause as he blinked at her.
"Probably not." he replied bluntly. "But I'm using what little time we have before I go into shock. We can debrief lat-"
"Debrief?! Sev, this is more than just a mission! It's Dumbledore!"
"I know, Circe!" he shouted. "But if we don't get out of here now we might not be far behind him! You might think you know The Order, but I wouldn't trust them not to lynch us when they find out what happened to Albus and we were the ones who were up there with him!" he said, pointing above him.
Circe gulped and let Severus carry her back into a pull.
As they exited the Tower, the two of them broke into a speedy jog, running through the halls of Hogwarts like two living shadows.
"How would they know that, Sev?" Circe panted at his back. "How would they know we were up there?"
"Harry was there." Snape said darkly.
"What?!" Circe exclaimed, completely horrified. "I.. I assumed he'd made it off the Tower after he returned from The Cave…"
"No. He was there. He saw it all. He saw me kill him."
Circe balked again at the frankness with which Severus said it.
"Wh-Where?" she asked breathlessly.
"Concealed. Hidden. Somewhere behind the Great Telescope I believe…"
"Oh God… he saw him. He saw him die…" Circe said tearfully. If Harry hadn't lost his innocence before tonight, he certainly had now.
"As if that boy doesn't hate me enough…" Snape muttered.
They ran through the ringing stone halls, the sounds of battle growing fiercer around them with each stride they took. Circe could see her friends and her students engaged in fighting duels all around her. Each time she looked through an archway or into a quad, there was someone she loved being attacked by a Death Eater. She mentally clocked them as she relentlessly continued her flight through the school: Luna, Ron, Hermione, Tonks, Remus… All of them were still alive, thank God. But there were a few she hadn't seen… Then her eyes fell upon a puddle of red staining the stone floor of an empty corridor.
"Bill! Mon Dieu… Bill!" Came the ragged sobs of someone hunched over a bloody body.
Fleur. Circe realised, her mind a little hazy as she took in the petite features and blonde hair of the Tri-Wizard champion she'd known many years ago.
She was covered in blood. Bill's blood. And she cradled him to her chest as he poured out sticky red ichor onto her. Three massive, gaping slashes down his face and chest.
"No…" Circe muttered, feeling her heart turn to lead inside her. "No. Oh God… Fenrir attacked him. Fenrir attacked him…"
All the colour had drained from her face when Severus turned to face her again. She looked like she was the one who had just killed someone….
"Circe-"
"Fenrir attacked him… because he thought Bill was me." She said grimly.
"Please Circe, we don't have time for this..." He said impatiently, finally dragging them both out of the castle walls and into the open grounds. "And where are the others?! Where's Bella and Draco?!"
Severus felt the pricking of sweat on his brow as he dragged Circe behind him. He needed to get them both out of here. They should have left already by now. Not even the cold night air seemed to chill his heating skin as he pulled Circe out into the grounds of Hogwarts. The two of them were just through the portcullis when Circe dug her heels into the wet grass, grinding herself to a halt. Severus's hand slipped away from hers and he looked back at Circe silently, his arm still outstretched towards her. There was a look in her eye. A resigned, defiant look that he knew all too well. She'd made a decision. A decision she had yet to share with him…
"I'm staying, Sev." She said quietly.
"Circe, I told you! You won't be safe here-"
"We can't just go running off into the night, Severus. Maybe… maybe Dumbledore left instructions for us. In his office... Something to help with Harry… or what we need to do in the future…His plan..."
"He didn't! He would have given them to us otherwise!"
"Wh- Well, what… what about Regulus's diary? What about Hokey's memories? The Gaunt ring. My Cantuscope… Ziggy...Your mother's picture… We haven't had time to prepare for this, Sev! And we've got nothing to go into hiding with. Our rooms will be ransacked after tonight! We'll be lucky if they don't destroy everything they find."
"And what about you?" He asked in a low growl. "It's all expendable. All of that stuff. But you aren't. How are you going to keep safe if you stay?"
"I… I'll keep myself hidden."
"Hidden?" He asked with a scoff. "In a castle that'll be swarming with Aurors in a few hours?"
"I'll keep to the tunnels, Severus. The ones you and me mapped when we were searching for the Chamber." She said, "No one knows about them. Not even the DA used them last year to sneak around to avoid Umbridge."
Severus fell silent, panting as adrenaline coursed through his body, thinking through what Circe wanted to do. He shook his head when the thought that she might be right entered his mind.
"So, how are you going to get out?!" He shouted at her, his voice strained and sardonic. "When you're done sneaking around and cowering in the pipes like a sewer rat!?"
"I'll wait a few days… for a quiet moment, and then I'll go."
"Wh… Circe… No! I won't allow it…."
"Severus! I need to know they're all alright." Circe roared back at him. "Bill especially. It's my fault, what's happened to him. Mine! I need to try and help him. I need to know he'll be okay..." she finished, tears steadily streaming down her face.
"Circe… why would you believe Bill is your fault?" he said gently, slowly reaching for her hand.
"It's a long story…" she said miserably, hanging her head low and letting her tears crash onto his shoes.
Severus looked at her long and hard. His legs itched to keep moving but he willed himself to take a deep breath and think… Think about what Circe had told him.
"You realise…" he began, leaning in close to her,"… that if we split up now, we might not find each other again until… until it's safe to come back here?"
Circe was silent for a moment, her tearful emerald eyes colliding with his, sending deep pangs of pain through her as she felt his fear. The fear of having to part from her again. It was plain to see. It was there in his obsidian eyes. She ached with that same dread too, but something stronger pulled her back to Hogwarts.
"We've both survived without each other before, Severus." she said quietly. "This year has proved that. We can both do it again."
He touched a hand to her face and breathed in deeply through his nose. "There's nothing I can do to convince you to come now, is there…" he said deflatedly.
"Nothing short of the imperius curse." she responded resolutely, laying her own hand over his. She lifted his fingers off her cheek and lay a kiss on his palm. He surged forwards and planted a desperate kiss on her mouth. He could taste her salty tears on her lips and he knew he better savour the taste of her in that moment before they were forced to part again.
"No matter where I roam, I will come back to my English Rose…" he purred, his breath ghosting over her mouth.
"I love you, Severus." she said firmly.
"I love you too, you silly git." he responded, taking a step back from her. "Now you better get back into the castle quickly. Before anyone notices you're still hanging around and you didn't leave with us. The closest entrance into the tunnels from here will be-"
"Seven Sisters. The drainage grate underneath the empty fountain in the clocktower courtyard. I remember." she said assuredly.
"Go on then." he said gently.
Circe turned from him and looked back at the castle, a frown of hesitation forming on her face. She turned back to Severus a little unsurely.
"Go." he said again, mustering a small, sad smile for her. "Before I beg you to stay."
Her heart gave out a great twinge of pain, recognising the words she had once spoken to him before he had left to find Odette. But despite the tears in his eyes, his smile remained firm. He nodded to her again and she felt his strength and bravery filling her up.
And with that, she reluctantly turned and ran.
Back into Hogwarts.
Back to find the drainage grate.
Back to a place separate from Severus.
He was left lingering there with a heavy heart for only a few moments before Bellatrix, Draco, Yaxley and The Carrows joined him. His face hardened into an emotionless mask .
"Where's your girl?" Amycus asked gruffly, looking around for Circe.
"Gone already." Snape replied monotonously. "We thought it best to split up just in case the Aurors want to track us."
"Pfft! So she high-tailed it out of here before we'd even made it out the door?! What an angel…" Alecto said derisively.
Snape blinked at her disapprovingly and she cleared her throat as his dark eyes bored into her.
"Shall we?" Snape asked them all dryly, and they continued their flight from the castle.
"Snape! You coward!" Circe heard someone roar above her.
She peered up through the drainage grate in the clocktower courtyard just in time to see the figure of somebody run past her, completely unaware of her presence there.
"Snape! He trusted you! Fight back!" Harry screamed. "Fight back, you coward! Fight back!"
Circe craned her head just enough to watch Harry go chasing after Severus and the others. She could feel the anger emanating off him. His rage could have brought down the sky. And she could now do nothing to stand in the way of it.
Hidden in her hole. A tunnel leading to the left and right of her. The sound of Harry's distraught cries echoed through the barrelled stone walls.
She sank to the ground, drawing her knees up to her chest and letting herself weep for the body she had sidestepped around on her quest to hide herself in the drainage ditch.
The body of Dumbledore.
Crushed and lifeless somewhere on the cobblestones above her. He could have been asleep, had it not been for the odd angles his legs and arms pointed in. She could somehow feel his eyes on her. Face down, staring at her through the ancient stones, into the old sewage pipe. That wise old face now forever bent into an eternal mask of terror. A stark reminder of his final moments of unsureness and fear. She let her distress overtake her as she fought to get the image of poor Albus out of her mind. Twisted, crumpled and unmoving on the courtyard floor above. Her friend and her mentor. Gone. The man who had given her everything she held dear. Dead. The great General who she had followed into war. Nothing.
"Kill me! Go on! Kill me like you killed him, you coward!" Harry screamed after Snape.
Circe sobbed, covering her mouth to muffle her cries.
How many more people would feel the same as Harry? Boiling over with the desire for revenge? To take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? To strike back at the servants of the Dark Lord for taking their great commander? How long would it be before they were all stuck in the endless cycle of War? You take one of ours and we take one of yours…Forever. Never-ending.
Harry's voice faded into the distance and she could only hope that Severus had left Hogwarts's grounds before Harry caught up with him. Circe remembered all too well what Harry had said to her after Sirius had died, that he wanted to kill Bellatrix for what she'd done. She prayed that there was no truth in those words, or at least that Severus was far enough away to not put Harry's threats to the test.
She picked herself up off the dirt-crusted floor, trying to stem her tears and her gasping breaths. She needed to stay quiet, she needed to stay vigilant if she had any hope of fulfilling her promise to Severus and making it out of Hogwarts undetected. She summoned up the mental map of the sewage network she'd logged somewhere deep inside her brain, and tried to think of the best route she should take to get her back into the bowels of the castle.
Victoria line up to Goodge Street and then Bakerloo line up to Holborn… she thought, surprised at how well she recalled the names and the routes her and Severus had used all those years ago.
She couldn't be here when the students started amassing. She couldn't hear their shocked gasps and their howls of grief. She would want to stand with them, to mourn with them. But she couldn't. They would all feel so lost and abandoned. Abandoned by their great Father. Left to fend for themselves with no one to protect them. She couldn't stay hidden amongst them when that feeling of helplessness dawned upon them.
So she trudged on, letting the darkness of the sewage tunnel swallow her up as she walked her lonely path back into Hogwarts. Just one more of Dumbledore's children now abandoned to a life without him…