She'd just wanted a glass of water. If she hadn't, she would have been in bed and none of it would have happened. At least not to her. (Or that's what she told herself; probably, they just would have snatched her out of bed if she hadn't already been up.)
She didn't know who they were and she didn't know where they came from. She'd left her wand upstairs in her bedroom, because she wouldn't need it just going down to the kitchen and back.
There was a cracking noise, not like Apparation but like a pane of glass snapping. She screamed, but whoever it was quickly had a Silencing Charm on her. She thrashed, and they had a Body Bind on her just as quickly.
"Let's see now," a man's voice, not particularly high or particularly deep, said calmly. He walked in front of her holding a small photograph, seeming to check the face in the picture against her face. He was tall and broad with rounded shoulders and more muscle than neck. He was bald. "Yep. We got the right one, sir." He was talking to somebody standing behind her. "Adelaide Grant. Ravenclaw House. Her parents will get her Head Girl letter in the morning."
"Stop talking," the man behind her hissed, and something went over Adelaide's eyes. She could sense movement, but couldn't see or hear anything. Then it stopped, and the Body Bind was lifted just in time for her to land in a heap on a hard floor.
She shouted, more at the surprise of impact than anything else, and worked her way to her feet. Somebody was shouting, asking questions and pounding on a wooden door, but whoever it was ran out of steam fairly quickly.
Adelaide looked around, seeing a plain room with shiny black bricks making up the floor and walls. There was a plain wooden door to one side, and the wall directly adjacent to the door was a large window. There was nothing visible through the window, though; it was dark. There was just the hint of another room on the other side, and a vague sort of red light. The room she was in was too bright, lit by the flat fluorescent lights in the ceiling common in Muggle buildings.
"Who are they? Who are you? What are we doing here?" he asked, spinning away from the door and stalking over to her.
Adelaide glared at him, recognizing him immediately. Atticus Porter, Slytherin. He was the obvious choice for Head Boy next year, their seventh year. He was clever and well-liked, and he got good marks. He wore light cotton pajamas and a dressing gown. His brown hair was more rumpled than she had ever seen it, but it looked rumpled the way a model's did in a photo spread selling breakfast tea in a magazine.
"No wait," he said before she could answer his questions. "You're… Grant. Adelaide Grant, right? Ravenclaw."
"Yes." She was oddly self-conscious of her soft pajama shorts and overlarge t-shirt. Her own hair wouldn't look so prettily mussed. It was long and straight and prone to greasiness before she got her morning shower.
"Grabbed you from home, too?"
"Yes. Just now."
"You're Muggle-born, right?"
"Yes," she said, raising her chin defensively, but he shook his head.
"No, I just mean—well, they did magic, right? And you're underage, so it will show up at the Ministry. My birthday's not for another week, but my mum's a witch, so they'll just assume it was her."
"Oh." That was really quite clever. "Well. Yes, I'm Muggle-born and that would have been perfect. But I had my birthday in May. I'm of age."
"Damn."
They chatted for awhile. They'd never been particular friends, but they'd had six years of classes together. Neither of them knew what was going on, though they'd both heard their captives mention that they'd be Head Boy and Head Girl.
"What are we doing here? Why would they take us, specifically?" Adelaide wondered aloud after a long time spent in silence. There had been no signs of life from outside their room. The door was firmly locked. The window didn't break when either of them pounded on it.
"I don't know," Porter said, sitting down against the far wall, opposite the glass. Neither of them wanted to touch the chair that stood at the front of the room, centered in front of the glass and somehow ominous in its plainness. "Does your family have any money? Mine doesn't, but my uncle is an Auror. He has lots of enemies, compared to most people."
"Well, not particularly." And it was especially unlikely that a pair of wizards would abduct her to get money out of her Muggle parents, but she didn't point that out.
Further discussion was interrupted by commotion outside their room. They both dashed to the glass, pressing their foreheads against it and trying to look as far out around the edges as they could.
"Anything?" he asked, and she drew back, shaking her head.
"Nothing."
"Where the hell are we?" he asked, punctuating his words by kicking the door with his heel. It thudded satisfactorily.
She couldn't think of anything to say—she didn't feel much like trying to comfort him, anyway.
A pair of thugs came into view holding a woman between them. Adelaide hadn't seen either of the men before, but they were broad and bald like the one she'd seen at her house had been. The woman was tiny between them, her arms completely engulfed in theirs as they hung onto her. She had curly brown hair, a few strands of gray at her temples, pale skin. She was in pajamas, too—long pajama pants and a camisole tank top. The tank top was a skimpy summer thing, showing off a myriad of small scars across her chest and shoulders, and a large jagged purple line that started over her heart and drove down under her shirt.
The woman twisted just as they began to pass the window, lifting her feet up. The thugs swung forward a bit at the shift in weight, and she brought her bare feet down on the close knee of the thug on her left. He went down hard, wailing, releasing her to grab at his leg. The one that still had her by the arm lurched closer, reaching for her free arm. He didn't grab the arm; instead, she brought it up sharply and punched him in the throat. He stumbled back, gagging, tripping over the one on the ground.
They were swearing. Adelaide put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from shouting out to the woman, sure that if they could hear the commotion beyond the glass they'd be able to hear anything from inside the room. The woman kicked the one with the bad knee in the face, breaking his nose, and while he wailed about that she relieved him of his wand. Somebody—probably more than one person, too—was approaching fast.
The dim red light of the hall was replaced by spell flashes. The exchange was fast and wordless. Adelaide had never seen anything like it. The woman twisted and dodged spells just as much as she used Shield Charms, and she sent spell after spell shooting down the hall out of sight faster than Adelaide could think of incantations.
The thug she'd punched in the throat lumbered in grabbing her around the shoulders and pinning her arms to her sides. She shouted, kicking and flailing. The man was prepared for it now, though, and he didn't drop her. She jerked her head back, smashing his nose, but he held on.
"Cock-juggling thunder cunt!" he screamed, shoving her into the glass hard enough that it rattled. Adelaide and Porter both jumped back from the glass. Adelaide wondered if they could see in, but doubted it—the woman would have seen them, but she didn't react like she had. In fact, her eyes were strangely blank, cold. It sent a shiver down Adelaide's spine.
"Why isn't she in manacles?" another man snarled from out of sight. "I told you to make sure you had her tied up."
"The bitch broke my nose," the thug holding her to the glass grumbled, glaring at the back of her head and shoving her against the glass roughly. The witch just smirked; it was unsettling.
"Imbecile," the snarling man said, coming into view. He was as bald as the others, though a bit less burly. He tugged the woman away from the glass, slapping her hard across the face. She stumbled back, dazed, and he used the moment to open a door and shove her through. He slammed the door and tapped on the wall with his wand, revealing a room identical to the one Adelaide and Porter were in.
They were all quiet for a long moment. The less burly man stared through the glass at the strange witch. The thugs pulled their comrades off the floor, and one of them attempted a few healing spells that didn't seem to work very well.
When it looked like the men were going to clear out, Porter started beating on the window, then the door. None of them even twitched. He shouted at them, but they didn't hear that either.
"They've spelled the room," Adelaide said, guessing. "They can't hear us out there."
"What the hell is going on!" Porter shouted, beginning to pace. He ran out of steam quickly, joining her sitting against the far wall. She stared through the windows at the witch in the opposite room. She was pacing, but it wasn't the panicked strut of Porter—she stalked back and forth past the window like a caged predator, one of the big cats at the zoo.
Adelaide began counting. The woman paced the length of the room forty-nine times, and then she turned away from the window, running her hands though her hair, and walked to the back of the room. She sat back against the wall, sliding down to sit with her knees propped up in front of her. It was then that Adelaide recognized her.
"Oh my god!" she said, turning to Porter. "That's Professor Granger!"
"Professor Granger?" he repeated dumbly, looking at her. "Arithmancy?"
"Yeah. I didn't see it before; she looks so different. But now…" Some of the coldness had leached away while she'd been pacing, and while she certainly didn't look like the professor she was used to—all buttoned up in pretty robes and with her hair put up in a bun, ink perpetually staining her fingers—it was undoubtedly her.
"She looks…" Porter started, but let it trail off. Adelaide glared at him; he'd been about to say something about the professors tits, she just knew it. Boys.
The professor was one of her favorites. Arithmancy was a challenging subject, full of calculations and thinking. Professor Granger could work most equations in her sleep, of course. She went on and on about the theory of things, grinning and correcting and guiding. She was pretty in that distant sort of way that teachers are sometimes—she was the youngest professor at Hogwarts by at least fifteen years, but she hid it behind layers of teaching robes. The girls could see it easier than the boys, which was probably the point.
There were rumors from the upper levels that once, years ago, she'd done a Defense demonstration and bested all of Professor Snape's practice dummies even though he'd only told her he'd activate one of them. And then, she'd turned around and bested him, too. Even if the story wasn't true, it made Professor Granger Adelaide's favorite teacher. Easy.
"Something's happening," Porter said, standing up and going close to the glass. After a minute, Adelaide joined him.
A pair of bald men were in Professor Granger's room. They couldn't hear anything that was said inside, or any shouting or spells. There was all of that, though. The men used their wands to force Professor Granger into the chair, which immediately sprouted chains and held her tightly in place. Adelaide shuddered and took a few steps away from the chair in their room.
The thugs looked like they were questioning her. They didn't like the answers she gave, if she was answering them at all. Her eyes had gone cold and empty again.
Something happened down the hall outside their rooms, and the thugs cleared out at a run. Professor Granger struggled against the chains on the chair for a bit, but all she managed to do was make her arm bleed. Frowning, she sat where they'd left her and glared at the door.
The building shook. The glass in Professor Granger's window cracked, fine lines tracing across one corner like a spider web. She grinned like a shark.
"What is this place?" Adelaide moaned. "What's happening? Why are we here?"
Porter still didn't have the answers.
A very long time later, there were footsteps out in the hall. Many pairs of boots walking in lock step. Professor Granger was grinning like a shark again, sitting as far forward as the chains would let her so that she would see whatever, whoever, was coming sooner.
The tall less-burly one came into view first, wand drawn. Then two thugs she hadn't seen before. Then a man she didn't know in handcuffs that attached to cuffs around his ankles with a fine chain. There was another bald man walking directly behind the prisoner with his wand pressed into the back of his neck. Then two more thugs.
The prisoner was vaguely familiar He had shoulder-length hair, black shot through with strands of iron gray, especially at the temples. His nose was large and hooked, and bleeding. Clean-shaven but with signs that he hadn't shaved in awhile, like Adelaide's dad looked when he hadn't shaved over a weekend, scruffy. He was tan, tall, thin. He wore black trousers and a white button-up shirt. His sleeves were folded up to his elbows, showing a gray-black smudge of an old tattoo on one forearm.
"Snape," Porter said, gaping. "That's Professor Snape."
"What the hell is going on?" Adelaide moaned. "Why are there professors here? Why are we here? None of this makes sense."
Professor Snape was different in the same way that Professor Granger was—he was suddenly human without his teaching robes, without the big stone walls of Hogwarts around them to remind her who they were. Where Professor Granger was prettier and weirdly feminine and scarred and cold, Professor Snape was less the Greasy Git and was more man and tall and… They had him chained up like they were afraid he would kill them.
But then, hadn't he killed Albus Dumbledore during the war? He'd been a Death Eater; that was what that tattoo meant, faded now but still present.
That was the strange thing about so many of the professors at Hogwarts. They'd fought in a war. Even the headmistress. It was easy to forget, especially since Binns made it all sound so boring when he covered it in History. But every once in awhile something would come up and it would be mentioned in the Daily Prophet, or some project for a class would have her looking things up in the library and Adelaide would stumble upon back-issues full of articles like Horror at Hogwarts! and wanted posters for people who were Ministry officials now. Or professors at Hogwarts.
The war had been a very difficult thing to explain to her parents. She still didn't know more than the bones of it, though not for lack of trying.
"This has to do with the war," Adelaide said, watching them frog march Professor Snape down the hall. He looked as blank and cold as she'd ever seen him, and, after seeing Professor Granger go cold like that not so long ago, it made her skin crawl. She turned to look at Porter. "This has got to have something to do with the war."
"The war ended years ago," he told her, like she was daft. She glared at him.
"Well what do you think this is about?"
"I've no idea. Why would it be about the war, though?"
"They both played a big part in it, didn't they?"
He just shrugged and went back to watching his Head of House. The professor had caught sight of the broken corner of glass in Professor Granger's window, and it made him smirk. The smirk was as terrifying as Professor Granger's shark grin.
Professor Snape and his entourage disappeared. Everything was quiet for a long time. Adelaide was just beginning to get sleepy, wondering if she should ask Porter to wake her up if anything happened and then have a nap, but then a man—and it could only be Professor Snape—started shouting, screaming. He was being tortured.
Across the hall, Professor Granger was sitting very still in the chair. She flinched every time he started screaming after pausing to draw breath. Her fists were clenched. Her eyes were squeezed shut.
Porter beat on the door for awhile, not that it helped anything. He had subsided, sitting next to her against the wall again, when they dragged Professor Snape in. Professor Granger was struggling against her restraints, presumably because she could see into the hall just as well as they could even if she couldn't see into their room.
Professor Snape wasn't unconscious, but he was limp and twitching. His hair and the neck of his shirt clung to him, wet with some clear liquid too viscus to be water. He wasn't bleeding, but there were curses that could make a man scream without making him bleed. Adelaide had read about them in the assignments for his Defense classes.
"Back," one of the thugs snarled, training his wand on them. Adelaide stepped a bit closer to Porter, and they stood back against the far wall while two other thugs heaved Professor Snape into the chair. The chains sprung out of nowhere, binding him roughly in place.
The thugs left, slamming the door behind them. Silence reigned for a long moment, interrupted only by Professor Snape's harsh breathing. After at least a full minute, his harsh breathing turned into a string of vulgarity muttered under his breath while he tried to shift himself more upright.
"Sir?" Porter asked, standing up a little straighter beside her. Professor Snape froze, going quiet.
"Who's there?"
"Porter, sir. Atticus Porter," Porter said, taking a few steps so that he was in the professor's sight. "And Adelaide Grant, too. From Ravenclaw."
"What the fu—the Heads? Hm." The professor went silent after that, except for some grunting when he forced himself upright. He stared forward, through the glass at Professor Granger in the room across. His face was entirely unreadable.
"Sir, w-what's going on?" Adelaide asked, blushing when it came out a whiny moan. The Defense professor glanced at her, frowning, before his eyes went back to the other professor. Adelaide exchanged a confused look with Porter, but they both knew better than to press him when he was wearing that particular frown.
Professor Snape was slowly turning red, Adelaide noticed. She glanced at Porter again and saw that he'd noticed, too. The professor squeezed his eyes closed, and when he opened them again he looked… resigned.
"Drag me to bedlam," he muttered, then cleared his throat and looked directly at Porter. "Porter, tell me: what happens when Veritaserum is whisked into distilled water immediately out of the brewing cauldron?"
"Sir?" Porter asked, glancing at Adelaide. Professor Snape was a Potions Master, but they only knew that because he'd filled in for Professor Clay once in their third year.
"Veritaserum into distilled water. Grant? Any ideas?"
Adelaide's mind rushed, latching onto the question—finally, something she could answer!—but coming up blank. Veritaserum was a Ministry-controlled potion; she'd only read the theory of it. The ingredients weren't listed, even in their seventh-year Potions textbook. "It…" she tried, but then closed her lips and shook her head. Better to admit to a lack of knowledge than to get the answer wrong in front of Professor Snape.
"Well, against all odds, it gets a bit syrupy," Professor Snape said. He hardly sounded like himself, the deep, even rhythm of his classroom lectures replaced by a gritty sort of resigned snarl. "And its effects are diluted—one can resist the temptation to spout the truth and answer every question fully, but only when one keeps speaking any truth that comes to mind."
"Is that what's all over you?" she asked, then added, "Sir."
"Tried to bloody drown me in the stuff," Professor Snape said, and she half expected him to roll his eyes. Again, Adelaide glanced at Porter. He looked very uncomfortable. "How long have you two been here?" Professor Snape asked, distracting her.
"Not long," Porter answered. "Hours."
"What's happening, sir?" Adelaide asked, begging for an answer with her eyes.
"No idea," Professor Snape said, his eyes roving around the room, noting the door and glass, them, the crack in the glass of Professor Granger's room, and Professor Granger herself.
"Why are we here? Where are we?"
"You two are hostages, I'm sure," he said.
"Hostages!" Adelaide squeaked, earning herself a strange, pitying version of Professor Snape's usual annoyed glare.
"I've yet to work out why we are here, though. They didn't ask me any questions."
Adelaide thought she might be sick, and Porter didn't look much better. Professor Snape didn't notice, though; he was thinking.
"They questioned her earlier," Porter said. "Professor Granger."
"I can see that," Professor Snape replied dryly. Adelaide glanced through the window behind her, noting the spots of blood on Professor Granger's skin and clothes, the spots where she was beginning to swell a bit. "Oh, don't look so worried about her, Grant." His tone was still dry, and Adelaide turned back to see him looking up at her, almost amused. "Our Arithmancy professor has survived worse than a bit of amateurish questioning."
His screaming hadn't sounded like 'amateurish questioning,' but Adelaide didn't want to press the point.
"She can't see through to us, but she can see the hall," he said. Adelaide glanced at Porter, who was nodding. She thought Professor Snape might just be talking for the sake of the potion in his system, though. "They snatched the two of you up first, but didn't so much as tie you up. They made her disappear from her own home, which is a feat in and of itself. Then they started in on her, but I suppose I interrupted."
"Was it you that made the whole building shake, sir?" Porter asked.
"Hm, probably," Professor Snape responded absently. He cocked his head to one side, and the room began to shake. Adelaide put her hands over her ears, feeling like her ear drums were quaking in time to a heartbeat that wasn't hers. Across the hall, Professor Granger was smiling her shark's grin again, and then she cocked her head to one side, too, and the shuddering intensified. The cracks in her window grew, slowly inching further across the pane.
The thugs flooded the hall, bursting through Professor Granger's door. The tallest of them pointed his wand at the window, sealing up one crack after another. He wasn't able to keep up with it, though.
One of them finally Stupefied Professor Granger, and the thrumming faded. A moment later, the wizards burst into their room, and one of the thugs slugged Professor Snape across the face. Professor Snape actually laughed, even as he turned his head to spit blood on the floor.
"Where is he?" the wizard bellowed, getting in Professor Snape's face. The other thugs had wands trained on Adelaide and Porter; Adelaide was sure she'd fall over her knees were shaking so badly. "Where is Harry Potter?"
"Potter?" Professor Snape repeated. He sounded like they were discussing football and the thug had suggested an unlikely team had just won a match.
"Potter," the man snarled. "She said it. 'He always comes for me.' So where is he?"
Professor Snape actually threw his head back and laughed. "Potter—" he started, then trailed off into more mocking laughter. The thug looked like he was about to hit the professor again. "You've been reading Rita Skeeter, asshole. It has always worked the other way. Potter runs off and gets in trouble, then she goes in after him and gets him out."
"No. He was the Chosen One. He defeated Lord Voldemort."
"Of course he did."
The thug looked like he was trying to come to terms with something beyond his comprehension—like he'd just been told the sun was actually purple and had it proven to him.
"Then who did she think was coming after her?"
"Me," Professor Snape snarled, and suddenly he was on his feet. The thug's wand clattered to the floor. Professor Snape had his hands around the man's neck, and the man struggled and thrashed, his fingers prying at Professor Snape's fingers, his eyes going wide and buggy. The thugs who had wands pointed at Adelaide and Porter were too busy staring, too surprised, to realize they had hostages.
Adelaide glanced across and saw that Professor Granger had her hands pressed to the glass of her window. The window was shuddering in time to that heartbeat again, the cracks crawling across the pane more quickly.
The thug Professor Snape was strangling went limp, and the professor let him drop. The wand on the floor jumped to Professor Snape's hand, and the other two thugs seemed to remember they had wands, too. Not that it did them any good.
Suddenly, it made much more sense why Professor Snape had turned his back and stalked away when Professor Alexander suggested he stand in for a demonstration during the Dueling Club.
Two-on-one, and the professor hardly seemed to register the challenge.
"Stay behind me," Professor Snape growled at them, handing them each a wand that had belonged to a fallen thug. Adelaide clutched the unfriendly bit of wood tight in her fist, but it didn't lend much comfort.
Carefully, the two of them stayed behind the professor. He went out the open door, looking up and down the hallway. There were six thugs there, two of them looking on as Professor Granger wandlessly broke through the warded glass. The other four were actively trying to stop her from escaping. Professor Snape made quick work or all of them, laying them flat just in time for Professor Granger to finally break through. She smiled her shark grin when she saw Professor Snape, waving her hand and calling their wands off the floor to her. She chose one and pocketed the rest, then blinked when she saw Adelaide and Porter. Adelaide blushed, feeling for a moment like she'd been caught out of bed.
"What the devil is going on?" Professor Granger asked. She sounded so much like the proper Arithmancy professor that Adelaide almost cried. She had a headache, too.
"No idea," Professor Snape said, looking up and down the hallway before setting off to the left.
"Are you alright?" Professor Granger asked gently, looking them over while Professor Snape led on.
"We're fine, Professor," Porter said. He sounded as shell-shocked as she felt.
"Hm," Professor Granger said. "We'll get you checked out anyway."
They were shuffled on ahead, so that Professor Snape was in the lead and Professor Granger behind them. It took Adelaide two turns and a sprint down a hallway with many doors to realize that the professors had taken up protective positions around them like they were children.
