A/N See the Voice Of Alexian review tomorrow for responses.
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Beta by Kristine Thorne
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Chapter Summary - A Real Home - Harry and Severus move into their new home and go with Ron and Hermione to Hogsmeade on a shopping trip, unfortunately, before anybody can buy anything, Ron and Hermione get to see Harry in action with his sword for the first time, when some unexpected visitors join them. (summary no where near as misleadingly evil as the last one, it is indeed battle time).
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Warnings! for the beginning of a main character serious injury storyline.
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Chapter Twenty-Three – A Real Home
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Harry stood by the door to his new quarters as the building wizards filed out one by one. The head building wizard gave the default password to Harry on a wall mountable parchment and he was officially in possession of his new home. He was so excited that he thought he would burst before he could reach Severus.
Ideally it should have been both he and Severus there to accept the parchment but they were a day ahead of schedule, the whole work had taken only two weeks to complete, and they hadn't told him what it was about when they had called him up. Harry had thought that it was another consultation meeting and nothing further.
Harry didn't want to go inside without Severus and so he pulled himself away from the door after the building wizards had left and headed for the grounds of the castle after checking his map.
He found Severus by the lake. Ron had taken to crashing on their sofa on a regular basis so that he could be there for Severus early in the morning and the arrangement was doing wonders. Severus had resumed almost all of his headmaster duties and was able to be up and about for most of the day.
As Harry joined his Kin, he noticed that Severus was drinking something.
"What is that?" Harry asked as the steam came up from the cup and a strange odour wafted over to him.
"Ginger tea," Severus replied, twisting his face as he drank a little.
"Hermione?" Harry asked, greatly amused.
"Yes, I only took it to shut her up," Severus grumbled.
"You will have to put your foot down or she'll be bossing you about just like she did poor Ron."
"Don't worry, I will," Severus said gruffly, taking another sip of the drink anyway, "It's supposed to help with sickness."
"Is it helping?"
"Don't know, not with Ron being there every morning, I'll try sipping it when I begin to feel the effects of the healing wearing off and see how it fares."
"Let's have a taste then," Harry said stealing the cup from Severus who didn't put up much of a struggle, "That's quite nice, could do with a bit of sugar though, you might like it if it's a bit sweeter."
"Could do with a shot of whiskey."
"Severus!"
"I am not going to do it," Severus assured Harry.
"I want you to take a look at our new quarters," Harry announced, suddenly remembering the purpose of his visit.
"I thought you said I wasn't allowed anywhere near till it is finished."
"It is finished," Harry replied with a grin.
"We can move in?" Severus asked, sounding far more excited than was characteristic for him to be.
"I thought you liked it down there in the dark?" Harry queried.
"I used to," Severus answered leaving the bulk of what he meant unsaid.
They looked up at the castle together, "They certainly did an excellent job of getting it back to the way it was, if you didn't know you would never guess what had happened," Severus complemented.
"You have no idea exactly what a good job they have done," Harry added turning away from his Kin to smile mischievously to himself.
The two Kin made their way up one staircase after another, half wanting to go faster and half wanting to savour the moment. In one way or another it was the first real home for both of them. Harry knew that apart from the company he had had with his brother, Severus' childhood had been far from ideal and he had come straight from his first Kin to the dungeons of Hogwarts. Harry was also a little bit nervous about what he had done.
Eventually they reached the door and Harry spoke the password, the door swung open and he let Severus go in first. Harry followed and they found themselves standing in an office no bigger than the one attached to the potions classroom, although it did have a beautiful view of the route down to Hogsmeade out of the window.
"The Headmaster's office," Harry explained, "The first password only gets you this far."
Severus looked around the room, although it was a very nice room, it had a big fireplace with a couple of armchairs and there were a number of very stylish and roomy bookcases, there were no other doors. Severus didn't on first inspection notice the trapdoor in the ceiling.
"This isn't quite how I imagined it," Severus commented.
Harry just smiled to himself and went over to the two largest bookcases, tapped them with his wand and spoke another password, "I just thought it would be nice to have the office very separate from our home."
The bookcases opened like very large doors to reveal a spacious living room beyond. Harry had got the building wizards to provide three sofas in an arrangement in front of the fire with a coffee table in the middle. Another office desk was positioned in front of a large window. The room was octagonal and there were six doors including the one they had just entered through, three on each side between the fire and the window. From inside the living room all the doors except the one that led to the office were operated by paintings, which helped the room look more adorned than it would have done if they had just been doors. Fortunately the internal doors were designed to open without any complicated interrogation by the painting's subjects.
"I made a few changes, firstly I wanted you to have a private desk by the window, then I added a potions room as far away from the three bedrooms as possible, the bathroom is two doors away with the office door in the middle. In the potions room there is a staircase up into the attic and there is another one in the office which won't normally be visible."
"Harry, this is in fact bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the plans that we agreed upon," Severus commented though he didn't seem annoyed in any way.
"I know, I just changed one thing at first and then I got carried away."
"Surely the bedrooms are going to be tiny," Severus observed.
Harry led Severus to the room that was to be their bedroom and when Severus entered it he found that it was larger than his old one in the dungeon. He also noticed that the bed, tables and wardrobe were already in place.
"I got the idea from your magical bath, all the rooms are like this," Harry explained.
"Harry, this is expensive building work, we haven't even secured any students yet."
"I paid for the extra things myself, I want somewhere nice to live."
Severus put an arm round his Kin and hugged him, he did after all, understand perfectly.
"Besides, there is also this…" Harry rushed round the living room opening all the doors and when he was finished he pushed Severus into the centre of the room.
"All the windows are opposite the doors," Severus observed, "We can see for miles in every direction."
"That's not all, look at the ceiling."
Severus and Harry looked up together and saw the ghostly image of a sunny summer's day.
"But it's cloudy outside," Severus commented, "I thought it was going to rain when I was out there earlier."
"It reflects the mood of the occupants, it may be dull outside but the sun is shining in here," Harry grinned, he knew that his Kin liked their new home, the light wispy clouds above Severus' head told him so.
"So is that the same bed in our new bedroom?" Severus asked.
"Yes, it was the last thing the building wizards did before they left," Harry answered, "There is another one down there now, I wanted this one."
"So we're moving in today then?"
Harry shrugged, "I hoped we would, you can go downstairs to say goodbye to the old place if you want but all your things have been brought up and the house elves have put everything away, it wasn't as if we had that much to move."
"Where is the chest with my private things?"
"It's tucked away in the wardrobe," Harry answered, "Nobody disturbed anything."
Severus sat down on one of the sofas and Harry joined him there.
"Looks like you have everything in hand," Severus complemented, "All there is left to do is to give out the invitations for our first afternoon tea."
"Hermione and Ron?"
"And the rest of the teachers," Severus insisted.
Harry wrote out some parchments and then spent some time throwing them into the fire simultaneously with the correct amount of floo powder. It was nearly lunchtime.
"Can we go down into Hogsmeade for some chocolate?" Harry asked, still excited at the wonderful day he was having.
"Apart from the likelihood of newspaper reporter wizards and other irritations, I can see no reason why not," Severus replied.
Harry hugged his Kin enthusiastically, "I'll ask Hermione and Ron to come too while we're all at lunch."
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After lunch they all made their way down the path to Hogsmeade as planned. Ron had been keen to come along but as they walked away from the castle gates he began to look very nervous. Harry walked beside him as they let Hermione and Severus go on ahead with enough distance between them to make them look like a couple on the edge of divorce.
"This is the first time that you've been outside of the castle grounds isn't it?" Harry asked.
"No, I used to go home for the holidays and we always got the train up from London," Ron answered.
Harry took that to mean that it was true, he hadn't stepped a foot out of the grounds since the attack on the castle before Christmas. Although Harry also got the clear indication that Ron didn't want to talk about anything related to the incident. It was their first little trip into Hogsmeade together in ages and Harry understood perfectly, he didn't particularly feel like talking about the Dark Lord either.
"I am going to buy a mountain of chocolate," Harry announced instead.
"Do I detect a preggie craving?" Ron asked.
Harry smiled, if they talked about something else, Ron might forget to be nervous, "Do you think so?" he asked his friend.
"I have heard of stranger ones but you've been back a few months now and you've never wanted some before, not enough to make a trip out in public."
"I hope so, I am nearly jealous of Severus, at least he can tell that something is going on," Harry grumbled.
"I think you're bigger," Ron said as they reached flatter ground.
Harry didn't know if he wasn't just saying it to make him feel better, "I am?"
"Yeah, well, not much bigger exactly, more rounded I think."
Harry laughed, "That could be because I went from walking ten miles a day to sitting around doing nothing by comparison, Sev and I didn't exactly have a very ample or varied diet while we were away." He replied, though he appreciated Ron's intentions.
Due to the spontaneous nature of their visit it was quite quiet in Hogsmeade. They made it through the sweet shop door without incident, though Harry assumed that the calm wouldn't last once word got round and there was bound to be a reporter stationed in the pub just in case anything happened.
Ron came into the shop at first but went to wait outside in the street after he had made his own purchases and Hermione had already gone off up the street to get something else that she hadn't felt the need to divulge the details of to anybody else. Not that they had looked like they cared when she had announced her departure from the group.
Harry conversed pleasantly with the woman behind the counter as he made his extensive purchases; it was always best to be very nice to the people who supplied the yummy things. The woman was of course very happy to serve and Harry thought, would probably put up a notice in the window to say she was his exclusive supplier shortly after he had gone. Severus stood quietly at Harry's side keeping an eye on the other occupants of the shop and giving anybody who looked like they might harass Harry a look of Snape-like intensity.
Suddenly Hermione burst through the door with Ron quickly following behind her.
"Whatever is the matter with you?" Severus demanded.
Harry turned away from his chocolate to see what all the fuss was about. Hermione looked like she had been walking very fast and in her current condition that wasn't wise. She also looked as if she had seen something very bad.
"There are dementors, loads of them, hovering all over Hogsmeade." Hermione announced in a voice breathless with exercise.
"It's true," Ron confirmed, "I looked up when I saw Hermione coming down the street and there they were, it was horrible."
"Brilliant," Harry grumbled, more irritated than anything else, "All I wanted was some bloody chocolate."
Severus leaned over to Harry and whispered in his ear, Harry grinned when he heard what Severus was suggesting. The woman behind the counter had looked suitably horrified at the mention of dementors but didn't move.
"I will complete this order," Severus told the woman and she nodded.
Harry stepped away from the counter and joined his friends.
"Right," He announced, "Nobody messes with a man and his chocolate, you two stay here, I will return when I have dealt with them."
Harry began to walk out of the shop but Hermione grabbed a hold of him, "You can't go out there alone, there wasn't just the one, there were as many as twenty, maybe more."
Harry smiled with confidence and shrugged, "It will be fine, don't worry and whatever you do don't leave the shop."
Harry drew his sword and went outside into the street.
Ron opened the door and stepped out onto the street too, not knowing what he was going to do but feeling as if he should be there anyway whatever Harry had said.
Hermione rounded on Severus who was adding some more confectionary to the order.
"I might have known that you wouldn't be there for him when he really needed it, no wonder Harry had to kill so many himself," She accused.
Severus could not continue with the order whilst Hermione was determined to be obnoxious and regretted that she had started on him in front of somebody who could sell the whole story to the Daily Prophet, but it was not to be helped.
Severus drew his sword, knowing that Harry would need the power soon, "I am always with him," he said in the other worldly voice, which came over him as the light of the power of the swords shone in his eyes.
Hermione was seemingly unmoved by the demonstration, "Well I am going to be there for him even if you are not, his friends will never desert him."
"You are a fool if you go out there," Severus stated but he wasn't about to try to restrain her.
Hermione rushed out into the street and went off in search of Harry. Severus returned his attentions to the chocolate order.
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When Harry left the shop he turned up the street, proceeding in the direction where Hermione had indicated that the dementors would be, there was nothing there. The street was deserted though, which indicated that, since it was only afternoon, the shoppers who had been there before had run from something.
Harry knew that they wouldn't have gone so quickly and he knew that they couldn't get past the castle wards. Whatever their reason for coming to Hogsmeade, they would still be around somewhere.
Suddenly Harry heard their familiar shriek and turned towards it, they had gone to the shrieking shack and that was where he would go too. As he approached them, Harry could now see the dementors circling the dilapidated building, it was as if they sensed him and certainly remembered him. No matter what side the dementors had seemed to have allegiance with they had never been on Harry's side, they would never forget how he had beat their kind back before.
The dementors now left the shrieking shack and Harry was glad to feel the power of the swords and Severus joining with him as he waited for them to fall into his trap. As they advanced, Harry became aware that Hermione and Ron had followed him despite his words, he had expected that they would.
"Stay well back!" Harry called to the friends that he knew were there, even though he didn't turn to see them. Bloody Gryffindors, he thought, neither had the ability to defend themselves against anything, yet there they were, in the thick of it. He really hoped that they would stay far enough back so as not to get caught in his crossfire.
Harry stood still and moved his sword arm so that the sword rested behind him, still in his hand and ready to strike but concealed all the same. The dementors continued to advance, either they didn't know what awaited them, Harry thought, or they were incredibly stupid.
He had been a little bit afraid when he had first seen them but as one of the dementors came within a few feet of him Harry was afraid of them no more. He allowed the dementors to swoop in, to surround him. They made all the familiar noises, all the familiar movements, Harry knew that they were trying to perform what wizards called the kiss but nothing happened, Harry just stood still and let them try.
The sword was becoming restless in Harry's hand; he could almost feel the metal twitching. Harry brought the sword up from behind him and commanded it with the words Severus had only just taught him. Tendrils of what seemed like illuminated mist connected the sword with the nearest dementor and it began to scream its piercing scream. It knew what was happening now but it was too late, no matter how hard it struggled it could not get away.
With his arm holding the sword above him, Harry began to turn, chanting the words to keep the magic going. Tendrils shot out in all directions as he span slowly, catching them all before they had a chance to flee. He kept turning, feeling the sword filling up, the dementors at the same time were withering but maintained their dreadful scream.
After what seemed like an age the first dementor fell, it was little more than a crusty jumble of tatty black rags. One by one they all fell and at long last the air was quiet and Harry stood amongst the remains with his sword glowing intensely.
Harry pointed his sword up at the sky and let all the recently collected energy go, one large misty tendril shot up towards the clouds then dissipated across the sky.
When Harry felt that his job was done, he lowered his sword and turned to his friends who stood huddled together, looking quite shocked but fortunately far enough away not to have been affected by his magic.
"Bloody hell Harry, that was brilliant!" Ron enthused as he began to make his way over.
"I thought I told you both to stay inside," Harry snapped.
"Oh come on, you didn't expect us to listen," Ron replied with a winning smile.
Hermione came to meet Harry too, "Somebody had to be with you, and your so called beloved is still in the sweet shop."
Harry chose to ignore Hermione, letting her words drift over his head, she just didn't understand and that wasn't totally her fault.
"What WAS that!?" Ron asked.
"All the souls that they have taken, I took them right back," Harry replied pointing at the ground, "And that is all that is left."
"You sucked the souls out of them? Are you going to put them back?"
"I set them free."
"So where are they now then?"
"A better place."
"Perhaps it would have been prudent to find out why the dementors where here." Hermione added.
"I am sure we haven't seen the last of them and when we do get some more, we'll send you in to ask them first," Ron spoke.
"They are likely looking for someone and that person may be due for a kiss, the contract would have to be fairly recent, I would have thought this would be the first place you would look," Harry thought aloud, "We don't know who they are working for but they aren't working for us and I killed most of the Death Eaters, so that leaves unknown survivors who for whatever reason were not at the battle, It can't be anybody who is on the run though, this isn't keeping a low profile. This is somebody who is quite confident."
"Right," Ron agreed with Harry, "What do we do now?"
"Now, we go back to Severus and conclude our shopping."
"Right," Ron agreed again before following Harry up towards the sweet shop with Hermione trailing reluctantly behind.
As they neared the main street Harry found that the local residents were beginning to emerge, having established that it was safe to do so. Along with the residents came a man who was striding towards their group with haste and a rabid look in his eye. Harry could recognise a reporter a mile off after so many years at Hogwarts and he quickly looked around.
Severus was standing outside the sweet shop with a large package in his arms. He too had seen the reporter advancing on them. As Harry got closer Severus set out to join the group.
"I've got everything that you wanted," Severus mentioned amidst Hermione's glower.
Harry gave him a beaming smile though, "Thank you Sev," he gushed, "I thought that we wouldn't have much time left for shopping once I started waving my sword around."
"All done?" Severus asked Harry.
"Yes, let's get back before that lot catch up with us," Harry answered gesturing down the street.
Severus took Harry's hand and they made as quick a pace as they could but having to wait for Ron and Hermione slowed them down a great deal. They only just made it over the threshold of the ward before the reporter caught up with them and bounced off it. He wasn't amused to find himself rebounded onto his backside.
"Just a few words Mr Potter," the reporter insisted scrambling to his feet.
Harry swung round to face the reporter, he was irritated, he didn't like them getting his name wrong, "Harry Snape, Headmaster Snape to you," He insisted with a glower.
"Whatever," the reporter replied, trying to show that he put no store in the Kin thing, not wise when he was wanting Harry to give him information.
"What do you want to know?" Harry snapped.
"How did you bring down the dementors?" the reporter asked.
Harry wasn't feeling very communicative and this was coupled with the knowledge that they would just twist whatever he said anyway, "That is a secret of the Kin."
"Is it true that you are expecting triplets?" The reporter persisted, changing his line of questioning suddenly to catch Harry off guard.
Where reporters were concerned however, Harry was full of guard but he couldn't help smiling at the rumour, "It is not true." He stated.
"Isn't it a coincidence that the dementors came to Hogsmeade on the very day that you decided to visit?" The reporter drawled.
"Yes it is," Harry agreed.
"It is thought that the dementors may yet return to Azkaban as guards, why did you kill them?"
"I wouldn't say that I killed them, they were hardly alive."
"A technicality."
"It is not in my nature to be forgiving," Harry snapped remembering what he had been told about the dementors themselves a number of years ago.
"May I quote you…"
"Whatever," Harry said with more finality than the reporter had done; he turned and walked away, Severus and his friends quickly following.
"Well that hardly helped," Hermione criticised.
"Does it ever?" Ron argued back.
Harry ignored it all and joined Severus, he took his hand again as they climbed up the path to the castle.
"I was having such a good day," Harry grumbled, "I will be glad when we're back in our home and it's time for the tea party."
"I will be glad to have you in my bed," Severus whispered in Harry's ear.
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Harry and Severus invited Hermione and Ron to come up to their quarters before everybody else and Harry ended up being rather glad that he had. He had had the opportunity to show his friends round without any other events taking over, whilst Severus had been finalising the arrangements with Dobby.
When all their other invited guests arrived however, it became clear that a number of owls had already been exchanged between the castle and Hogsmeade, all anybody wanted to talk about was the incident with the dementors and what Harry thought it might mean.
With most of the teaching staff present their large living room suddenly didn't seem very large at all and Harry knew that he had to mingle. What had seemed like such a good idea that morning was turning into something Harry wished that he could avoid and the heat generated by so many bodies was making the air hot, humid and suffocating.
Having had several somewhat identical conversations with a number of the teaching staff and some of the parents, whom Harry couldn't remember inviting, Harry tried to break away from the crowd and ended up running into Professor Trelawney instead.
Despite their conversation a few weeks previously Harry still jumped a little when he saw who it was that he had collided with, he supposed that she would always give him the creeps.
"Ah Harry, I am glad to have run into you," Professor Trelawney began.
Harry knew that this must mean that she had some sort of premonition, "You have something to tell me about the dementors?" Harry asked.
Trelawney turned out to be the only person present who didn't know anything about it, "Dementors? Here at Hogwarts? Never." She replied.
"They've already been and gone," Harry explained, "I wanted to know if you knew why they were here?"
"I have been up in my tower all day, I saw nothing, however," Trelawney added, "An old acquaintance draws near to you, he is a male wizard with long dark hair and was perhaps not always your friend."
"He wouldn't be called Will would he? He's the only one who remotely fits the description. You've told me this one before," Harry asked trying to make sense out of Trelawney's ramblings.
"No, no," Trelawney insisted, "Not the muggle who knows, but another, a wizard."
"Right, do you have a name at all?" Harry was feeling about as patient with Trelawney as he had been with the reporter, except that now he was feeling extremely hot and breathless. He wanted to get up into the attic and open the skylight for a bit of air and more than anything he wanted to be alone with his Kin.
"No," Trelawney admitted, "But he draws close to you now."
"I don't know anybody with long dark hair," Harry insisted.
Harry felt suddenly very light-headed and as if he couldn't breath, his head span and he felt as he used to do when the dementors came for him except that on this occasion he had dealt with them already and there couldn't be more already, he reached a hand out to grab Trelawney's robes as his legs gave way and the room went dark.
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When Harry opened his eyes next he was aware that he was lying on one of the sofas in their living room. Severus was knelt on the floor next to him and was holding his hand. Harry looked at his Kin and Severus didn't look too worried. Hermione and Ron were also close by and Harry thought that he could sense that everybody else was there too and they had only pulled back out of his line of sight.
Harry sighed, it was certainly turning into one of those days, first of all he had to fight dementors, seemingly invincible, and then he fainted for no reason whatsoever. He could only be thankful that Draco wasn't there; HE would have had a field day with how pathetic he was turning out to be.
Suddenly Harry remembered that his last memory had been of falling. "Did I fall, is everything all right?" Harry asked, immediately panicking.
"You wouldn't believe how fast Severus can move, well maybe you can, but I was surprised," Ron rambled, "You didn't fall."
Harry squeezed his Kin's hand, "So, what was it then?" Harry asked, "Was it some sort of delayed reaction to chasing dark beings?"
"That, Harry, was a preggie symptom if ever I saw one," Ron announced.
Harry smiled, "Really?"
"It wasn't anything to do with the dementors, you're beyond all that now," Severus reassured Harry, "It certainly didn't help that it was so hot in here."
Harry pushed himself up so that he could see around the room and found that all of their guests were still there and they were looking at him.
Harry covered his face with his hand as he felt his cheeks redden, "Great, I triumph over evil and nobody sees it, I make an idiot out of myself and they're all watching," Harry grumbled to Severus.
"I should have made them go," Severus admitted, "But my attention was elsewhere."
Harry smiled at his Kin, "I have survived worse," He said pulling himself up to sit properly, "Just get the windows open and then the party can continue."
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In the end the party went quite well, they all gave him some space once he had performed his dramatic fainting stunt, though Severus wouldn't let him off the sofa anyway. Even so, Harry was glad when they were on their own at last and the house elves had cleared away all the mess.
"I think I prefer our home like this," Harry said as Severus wrapped his arms around his Kin.
It was getting late and it was almost dark and Harry was looking weary.
"Why don't you have a bath and then we can go to bed, you've had quite a day," Severus suggested.
"I would love a bath," Harry agreed.
"And I will have a look at the Headmaster's office and get it how I want it before you get your hands on it."
"Fine, you can have your little domain," Harry said huffily, though he didn't mean it.
Severus waited till Harry had gone into the bathroom then he went through to the bedroom and opened the package from the sweet shop. He took out a small packet, which wasn't part of Harry's chocolate supply and headed for the Headmaster's office.
Severus opened the packet and tipped the contents into a bowl that lay ready on the desk.
"Lemon drop?" Severus muttered to himself as he sat down behind the desk to get the feel of it. The bowl on the desk was brimming with little yellow sweets all individually wrapped, there were some traditions that were worth preserving.
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Harry was taking a long soak in the bath and Severus had picked up their copy of the baby catalogue and was merrily flicking through the pages when there was a rather urgent knock on the door.
"Who is it?" Severus called as he pulled himself to his feet.
"Aurors from Hogsmeade," came the reply in duplicate. The aurors were among the few that had access to Hogwarts from the village and they could bring one person with them at their discretion. Severus had of course insisted, on pain of death, that it was only to be used in emergencies. It was a safeguard that had been in place since a number of the staff had been locked out.
"Business?" Severus called as he crossed the room.
"Somebody who has asked to see you," The aurors replied, "We thought it was important because of his condition and recent events."
Severus pulled open the door to find the two aurors that he had come to expect from their brief conversation. One of them held what seemed to be a body in his arms, Severus could tell that the man was wrapped in a medi cloak, making him very light to carry. The man had long dark hair and that, coupled with the dim light, was serving to obscure his identity.
The man was obviously unconscious so Severus opened the door to the living room and gestured to one of the sofas. The auror laid the body down on the sofa and without taking his eyes off him Severus asked the aurors the things he thought he ought to know.
"Who is this?" he asked first.
"We don't know," one of the aurors answered, "He's a wizard in his mid to early twenties, he has grown his hair long although he remains clean shaven, he's wearing very tatty clothes, other than that, we don't know."
"Tell me what happened between this afternoon and you both ending up outside my door." Severus demanded.
"Harry dealt with the dementors as you know," the auror who had obviously been elected as speaker began, "We decided to do a search, check the area."
"After all the dementors had been destroyed, and the danger had passed?" Severus interrupted.
The auror had the decency to look embarrassed, "Well yes, after they were gone, we searched the streets and we searched the shrieking shack."
"You found him there?" Severus asked.
"Yes, lying on the floor near the foot of the stairs, he asked to see you and we had no evidence that he had committed a crime."
"Did he ask for me or the Headmaster?"
"He asked for the Headmaster," the auror confirmed.
"Then what?"
"He didn't get up on his own so we assumed he needed some help. We tried to help him stand but he wouldn't, then he passed out. We have carried him up from the shrieking shack and his condition remains now as it was then."
Severus was intrigued, "Did you recognise anything about him?"
"No," the auror answered, "He is not known to us."
"Well he has some connection to the school, even if I were not the Headmaster in his day I suppose I must have taught him Potions at some point," Severus said approaching the body that lay sprawled on their sofa, he leant down and pulled the hair away from his face. Then gasped.
"Do you know him?" the auror asked.
"Yes," Severus had to admit.
"Do you have a name?" the auror persisted.
"His name is Oliver Wood." Severus replied.
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A/N How's that for an evil cliffie? Hee hee.
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Coming Soon - Chapter Summary - A Short Interlude At Culloden - Somebody isn't very happy about the defeat of the Dark Lord and he wants revenge. This IS short so I am going to post twice next week, with this interlude and a proper chapter a few days later.