Chapter 28: Second Attempt

It was the wrinkles in the boy's forehead that Severus couldn't ignore—the aged, worried tension that most ordinary thirteen-year-olds rarely displayed. He had noticed it last year, as well, when Ginny Weasley had been in the hospital wing and he'd found Potter in the corridor, crouched, perspiring, nursing a migraine. Severus had simply ordered the boy to bed then, had carried with him a pain-relieving potion and a calming draught and, if necessary, a vial of Dreamless Sleep in case the boy had refused to mind him. That time, he hadn't.

Throughout the evening, while the others had been distracted by the gnarled body twitching in the crate, Severus had cast the barest of glances at the one-way mirror cupped in his open palm, the mirror that, days prior, he had connected to Lily's portrait concealed inside the locket.

The face of it had remained dark: the portrait sealed closed under the boy's shirt as he had set aside his moping about in Surrey, only to trade it with his preoccupation in involving Granger and, somehow, a house-elf in his latest bout of defiance. Severus still hadn't the time to piece together the finer details of that disaster; he hadn't been certain that he even wanted to. The immediate, hot rage that had consumed him in Lucius' study had been so reminiscent of Tobias Snape that an icy, nauseating sensation had gripped him soon after. But unlike his father, Severus had kept his fists down, he had taken in silent, slow breaths until his vision had cleared around the edges, had taken in the boy's simple question: how come you didn't just tell me?

Severus still could not answer that.

A short while after he had returned to the dungeon, having given Harry the password to Albus' office, his fingertips had itched for another attempt at the mirror. One more check.

This time, the boy appeared to be sitting on the floor, leaning his head against the wall as he gazed down at his mother, those wrinkles creasing his forehead, the way he had so many times during his brief return to Little Whinging. Holding the locket at such an angle, Harry had exposed to Severus the jagged silver scar underneath his fringe, no longer inflamed and pink as it had been the other day in Hadrian's shop. Severus was also granted a partial view of the sorting hat behind Albus' desk.

Harry had obeyed.

The coolness of relief cascaded down his entire body. For only an instant, Severus let his teeth unclench. He closed his eyes. He tucked the disc into a pocket inside of his robes; it clinked against the other, slightly larger mirror he had confiscated from Black.

The only light that spilled onto the dungeon floor came from the torches on the walls, but with every minute that passed, Severus knew that the softness of the twilight was fading, bruising into nightfall. Now that Pettigrew had returned from his slumber, four men accompanied Severus in the Malfoys' cellar—five, including Black, who was still slumped against the wall, sitting nearly identical to Harry with his head leant back and his legs protruding in front of him like tree roots.

But Black's forehead wasn't creased with tension; it was smooth as steel, his lips resting together, resigned, calm, almost bored; he sat without moving as he waited. Severus could recall a similar bored expression on Black's face when they had been teenagers, waiting for essay results to be handed back or waiting for his mates to perform a Transfiguration spell he'd mastered on the first take. He couldn't, however, remember Black ever sitting so still. As though he were part of the dungeon wall. A brick of lime.

It took only an instant more for Severus to realize that Black's eyes were locked on Pettigrew, who had turned from the crate, his eyes boring into the round spectacles, traveling over the small, slouching form against the wall in a peculiar, calculating way, as though he were seeing the boy for the first time.

An empty vial of snake venom rested where the missing finger should have been.

Black returned the glare with slow, impassive blinks; the smooth jaw twitched. His stillness was no longer radiating boredom. There was danger in such a stillness. The eye of the storm. Severus could taste it in the dank air.

Lifting his chin as he steadied himself, he contemplated the various methods of forcing Black back in check, lest the fool blow his cover. And then, Severus felt it: the burning in his forearm. He clutched at the familiar, unwelcome pain, stiffened his shoulders to keep from hunching.

The warning.

Macnair and Malfoy would return from the Little Hangleton graveyard within moments, bringing with them one of the vital ingredients for the potion that would see to the Dark Lord's return.

They all watched as Pettigrew lifted the bundle, raw flesh and rags, cradling it as if it might shatter, while Gibbon transfigured the wooden crate into an oversized cauldron.

All but Black. He peered up at Severus from his place on the floor, a swallow working its way down his throat; the trance had lifted, his eyes no longer glinting with malice for the man responsible for his twelve-year prison sentence. The death of his youth. Instead, he was alert, his jaw set. He had witnessed the collective wincing, the blanched faces, fingertips pressing into forearms; he knew what that burning signified.

Severus stared back. He could not send his own form of warning—his Patronus—to Albus, wherever the headmaster may be; it would give him away immediately. Instead, he would use the charmed coin tucked into his other pocket to send word to the others when the time was right.

Not quite yet.

Black would need to be standing as close to Pettigrew as possible so that his spell couldn't miss.

But he also couldn't bleed into the cauldron. Not even a drop.

Ensuring that was Severus' responsibility. Another: neither of them could fail.


"You're lying."

Draco had attempted to comb his hair back into place and had worked on refastening his cuffs, squinting in disdain as Harry had explained about Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew's Blasting curse and Ron's rat with the missing toe—explained as much as he had been willing to reveal, anyway.

Still scowling, Draco tucked in the tails of his shirt. "But you're not very good at it, are you? How bloody daft do you think I am, Potter?"

Harry thought about this. For someone who was tops in their year in nearly every subject (second to Hermione, of course) Draco wouldn't recognize common sense if it backhanded him in the face.

"Why would I lie about all of this?" Harry pressed on, pushing down the urge to return Malfoy's scowl and throw in a few insults while the other boy was without his wand, without Crabbe and Goyle flanking him, and, Harry reckoned, without the ability to keep from flinching. "You obviously saw someone you thought was me…and then saw me again in your father's study. How would I have even escaped? What, is there another secret passage that leads from the dungeon to…" He trailed off, suddenly struck with a thought so terrifying, so intriguing, that the words lodged in his throat. He let them play dead for now.

However, preoccupied with his own priggishness, Draco passed over Harry's attempt at deliberation. He propped his shoulder blades against the frame of the hearth, twisted the pearly button of his cuff between his fingers. A smirk twitched at his upper lip. "I know all about Sirius Black and how he betrayed your parents. Did you know he was supposed to be your godfather? Your father's best mate and all that."

sHarry's mouth dried up and his face grew hot. His dad's mate, yes. His godfather, no. Why hadn't Sirius told him? Or Snape, for that matter?

"In denial about your godfather causing your parents' murders, are we?" Draco tutted, crossing his arms over his chest.

Running his fingers through his hair, Harry drew in a deep breath to keep his head from swimming. This new bit of information had unsteadied him, but he still believed Sirius. Even Snape believed Sirius. That was enough.

He gave his glasses a firm nudge and stared straight at Malfoy. "Sirius didn't kill those Muggles, and he didn't kill Peter Pettigrew. I've only just seen him in your house…Hermione did, too. Haven't you seen him?"

Draco's smirk melted.

"Don't you know which one Pettigrew is? Didn't your father tell you that he was alive?" Harry watched the boy's shoulders tense up. "Do you actually know what they're doing down in your dungeon…I mean, exactly?" A beat of silence. "Don't you know anything?"

"Piss off, Potter," Draco spat, his pale face ruddy with discomfort. "I know more than you do."

"What do you know, then?"

"What do you know?"

Sparing a glance at the door to Dumbeldore's office, Harry made a silent wish—again—that Hermione wouldn't pop in anytime soon with an adult in tow, especially if that adult sported a gray bun on her head and spectacles on her nose. But with the time it would take for the girl to wait on the rotating staircases, nevermind poking her head into barren classrooms and offices, she wouldn't return for at least another fifteen minutes, perhaps longer. He drew in another long, stabilizing breath, the way Snape often did when the man was forced to repeat himself more than once.

"I know that Professor Snape and Sirius and your dad and some other men are down in a dungeon; there aren't any windows…and there's only one way out. Dobby told me that you can't even Apparate out of there…"

"Disapparate," Draco corrected smugly. "When did you talk to Dobby?"

Harry ignored this. "And even if you don't Floo back and tell your father what I just told you about Sirius being in disguise, they'll eventually know that's not actually me down there." His chest was beginning to tighten with irritation. And another feeling he couldn't explain. "Don't you understand? They're going to fire curses at each other, and people are going to get hurt…maybe even killed. No one is safe down there. I don't care what Snape said."

Draco wasn't leaning on the hearth any longer, his arms hung limply by his sides. But he was still glowering at Harry, his eyes dull and strange. "What did Professor Snape say?"

"Never mind that—"

"I do mind, Potter," Draco seethed, his voice brittle. "Tell me what he said to you…and when he said it."

"Depends what day you're going on about," Harry replied in as churish a manner as he could manage. "I've been at Hogwarts for most of the summer. He's told me loads of things."

It had to be said. Harry could take an impressive amount of crap from Malfoy, but when the berk started tossing commands at him, well…everyone had a limit. Besides, if his lodging up at Hogwarts for the summer hols was supposed to be a secret, then maybe Snape should have told him that at some point, too. Either way, Malfoy was bound to find out one day that Snape didn't just give Harry Acceptables on his Potions essays but gave him a vitamin supplement in his juice every morning. He didn't just glare down his nose at Harry and take house points for his cheek but occasionally took his pudding away for sulking…took him along to the greenhouse…took him to Ireland…took him a stomach-soothing potion when poor Hagrid had baked him the most rubbish birthday cake Harry had ever had the displeasure of eating.

During this past school term, Snape had usually been able to pass off Harry's hanging about the dungeons as detentions or remedial lessons. But the professor had long stopped trying to tell him off in front of the Slytherins—unless he deserved it—and, after last Christmas, Harry had stopped seeing "Ds" and "Ts" scrawled across his assignments, for the most part. Malfoy had seemed suspicious at first, even vexed: watching Harry squirm in humiliation and rage during Double Potions was one of his favorite pastimes, after all. But as the spring term had dragged on, the Slytherin had mostly started to ignore him, and Harry had returned the favor.

Standing face-to-face in Dumbledore's office, however, the aura of pure loathing rekindled, sizzled between them like a sparking power line. Harry basked in the familiarity of it.

"What, you require round-the-clock remediation now?" Draco scoffed darkly. "Or were your relatives looking to dump you for the summer, as well? Couldn't stand the sight of you, could they…"

"A bit like your parents dumping you with your uncle last Christmas? Even Snape wouldn't let you stay with him…you had a strop over it and everything." Unapologetic, Harry clenched his teeth together as he watched the color drain from Malfoy's face.

But Snape let me stay, he almost added.

Caught off-guard, Draco shifted in place, rubbed at his arm. "You don't know a damn thing about Professor Snape."

Harry shrugged. He curled his fingers around the ends of both wands in his pocket. "Maybe you don't…"

They continued to glare at each other until the gray eyes twitched at the corners, lost.

"Prove it, then."

"Prove what?"

"Prove that that's Sirius Black in the dungeon."

Suddenly exhausted, Harry rolled his eyes. "How can I do that unless we go back to your house? I can't…" The words tasted like dust on his tongue. "...I can't be there."

"Didn't stop you from trespassing before, did it?"

"Well, yeah, but that was before Snape told me that…" Harry paused, flicked his gaze toward the darkening window. "...before he told me to go back to Hogwarts."

The thin eyebrows narrowed. "What is it he told you, Potter?!"

Frowning now, Harry watched Malfoy pop his knuckles, lightly bang the heel of his shoe against the brick behind him, fidgeting as though he might wet his pants. He'd never seen the other boy like this.

And then, with a jolt, Harry realized he'd already answered his own question: Malfoy, indeed, didn't know anything. Just as he hadn't known about Tom Riddle's diary or the basilisk last year. The boy may have seen those men gathered in his cellar today; he may have seen more than Harry had. But, clearly, he didn't understand it. His father had shown him, but Lucius hadn't told him. No wonder Draco had kept hanging about, risking Snape's wrath…

Harry felt the rush of clarity. Like the cold wind hitting his face when he dove for the snitch. A crisp snap, even. A bright light. He'd regained the upper-hand.

"Look," he tried again, "I only saw one staircase leading to your dungeon, and neither of us can go banging down that way…obviously."

"I can go anywhere I please…it's my house."

"Yeah, sure," Harry scoffed. "I heard Snape tell you to get lost, and he said your father told you the same. Neither of us can be seen down there. You know we can't."

Draco flushed; he pulled a sour face. "How do you even know what the dungeon looks like if you haven't been down there?"

Hesitating, pressing his lips together in regret, Harry eventually reached into his pocket and took out his two-way mirror. He held it out for the other boy to see. "Sirius gave me this."

Unimpressed, Draco leaned in a bit, still wrinkling his nose as though Dumbledore's office were foul-smelling.

"He's got one, too…that's how I knew Sirius was in your cellar." And then, for what it was worth: "He's wearing my cousin's shirt I gave him. That's how I really knew."

"A compact mirror? Keeping a tube of lipstick in your other pocket, then?"

"Would you maybe stop being an arsehole and listen to me?" Harry huffed. "I'm not lying—"

"Wait, shut up a minute." Draco's brow had narrowed again. He leaned in closer to the mirror.

Harry tilted his head in, as well, clutching the wands a bit tighter, just in case.

Taking his lower lip into his teeth, Draco listened. He peeked up. "I think I can hear my father."

Straightening, Harry held the blotted-out face of the mirror right next to his ear. He could hear the rumble of men's voices, though he couldn't quite make out words. He could feel Draco watching him; he raised an eyebrow. "See? I told you. It's a two-way…sort of like a walkie-talkie…" Harry shook his head to erase the Muggle term. "I mean, it must be in someone's pocket."

"There is a hidden passage to the dungeon."

Harry's other brow spiked to life over his glasses, that terrifying-intriguing thought perking up again. He lowered the mirror away from his ear. "Seriously?"

"It isn't like the door in the bookcase…the corridor that leads to Father's study. This one is through the ventilation shaft…it leads to an iron grate on one of the walls down there."

"How…" Harry cleared his throat. "How do you get to it?"

"Through one of the spare bedrooms in the south wing. There's a grate you can climb through next to the wardrobe. I shut Dobby up in there once when I was younger and made him see where it led. He didn't even have to crouch."

Wrinkling his forehead at the flippant expression on Draco's face, Harry sniffed. "That's big of you."

"It's quite large…wide enough to crawl through…"

Harry stood quietly for a moment, rubbing his palm over his hair, pulling the strands through his fingers.

"Too scared, Potter?"

"Ah, yeah, I'm trembling all over," Harry jibed dully, peering past Malfoy's shoulder until his eyes fell on the blinding flashes of candlelight glinting off of the glass case that held the sword of Gryffindor. As far as Harry knew, the sword had remained there ever since Dumbledore had used it to destroy Tom Riddle's diary last winter.

The rubies embedded in the handle caught the light too, but in the haze of nightfall, they glimmered a dark crimson: tiny pools of blood.

If only they were five floors lower, Harry could shove Malfoy into the chamber under the sink in Myrtle's bathroom, and then they would see which one of them was too scared.

Harry refocused. "Can we Floo straight to that bedroom…or that wing, at least?"

"The south wing. It's empty."

"And the ventilation shaft is wide enough all the way through? You're certain?"

"What are you, deaf?" Draco spat. "I've only just said that."

The hostility sparked and crackled between them.

"So we make it down there…and then what?" Harry spoke up. "You gonna shout for your father?"

A frown. "Right…"

"Hop down out of the vent and join the lot of them?"

The smirk attempted to return but with far less enthusiasm. "Suppose we'll have to see, won't we?"

Harry rolled his eyes. Malfoy had screamed like a girl and had bolted after glimpsing Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest during a detention first year, and he'd only been a floating hood then.

The sudden clink of metal on glass rang out from behind the headmaster's desk. Both of them turned to see the handle of the heavy sword leaning against the case. The rubies shimmered and winked. A brief stretch of silence passed, and then the door to the case fell open. The sword clanged noisily against the shelf below it and clattered against the carpet.

Malfoy swore.

Harry's shoulders jerked.

The sword lay hidden behind the desk, but the ringing echo of the silver blade stretched toward the ceiling. Harry gawked at the open case and then moved toward the desk, rounding the corner.

"What are you doing?" Draco croaked, watching as Harry crouched down and picked up the sword. "Are you stupid? Leave it."

Harry poked his head over his shoulder. "Why?"

"Doesn't Dumbledore keep that locked?" The boy flashed his eyes in every direction as though a ghost would tumble out from its hiding space at any moment.

"How should I know?"

Harry balanced the sword against both palms as he stood, surprised by its slight weight; he blinked down at the reflection of his glasses in the silver blade. Somehow, the length of it had shrunk by half, perhaps more, until it was the size of a large dagger, now light enough for Harry to handle. He slid it through one of his belt loops until the handle rested at his hip.

"Fancy yourself a knight, then?" Draco managed to sneer. "Where are we off to next? The Great Hall for a suit of armor?"

Heading straight for the mantle, edging past Malfoy's sour squint, Harry forced down a tight swallow as he grabbed a handful of grits from the cask. He had known the very instant he'd sat down on the carpet of Dumbledore's empty office that he wouldn't be staying long. Maybe, somehow, his mum knew it, too. And maybe he knew that at only thirteen, he couldn't really protect Snape or Sirius the way that his professor had protected him, but he had been a whole year younger when he'd stared down a basilisk, and if Snape had gone alone, the man might have been petrified…or worse. No one else but Harry could have controlled it; even the headmaster had admitted that. No one.

"Snape's chambers."

"Are you mad? Why would you go there?"

"What?" Harry challenged, chucking in entirely too much Floo powder; the strong gust of warmth from the green flames blew his fringe clear off of his forehead. "You can wait for me here if you'd like."

A soft snort. "And you can bugger off, Potter."

Shrugging, Harry ducked into the flames, leaving Malfoy goggling at him through the emerald vapor, and called out his destination. When he stepped onto Snape's hearth rug, the room was so dark that he nearly tripped over the pair of black lace-ups Snape had forced him to try on last week to see if they still fit to wear with his school uniform. They had. Harry was supposed to have put them back in his bedroom before they'd left for Ireland—a second time—but the both of them must have forgot, and Harry had been dumped at number seven Privet Drive before he could make amends.

Only a week ago, a pair of lace-ups with untidy shoelaces lying too long on Snape's rug would have sparked an argument. A petty, normal mishap. Nothing felt normal anymore.

His eyes had just begun adjusting to the darkness as he stared down at his school shoes when another flash of green heat left him squinting, blinking in flutters. Draco stepped through.

Pushing the fringe back onto his forehead, Harry tried to mask his surprise as he watched the last of the flames flicker and die out, the other boy's silhouette fading into the gloom. He'd half-expected Malfoy to make good on his threat of Flooing back to find his father, leaving Harry to navigate the south wing of the manor by himself. He would have, too.

A strained voice: "What are you standing in the dark for? Cast a light."

Sighing, Harry slid his fingertips along both wands until he recognized the familiar pattern of grooves along the holly. Soon, they were both grimacing against the bright blue light radiating from Harry's wand. He lowered it closer to the floor but pointed it all around the room until he found what he was looking for on the corner of Snape's writing desk. Tucking the book under his arm, Harry reached for a quill and a bottle of ink, taking careful steps to keep from dropping anything until he lowered himself into the chair in front of the fireplace.

"We haven't the time for you to write a love poem to Granger, you know."

If Harry had a free hand, he might have flipped up his middle finger. Instead, he concentrated on using one of those hands to balance the small canister of ink on the arm of the chair without spilling it onto his jeans, while the other worked on flipping to the correct page with his wand still in his grasp.

"What the hell are you doing?" Draco again. He sniffed in derision. "It's like watching Hagrid trying to use his cutlery…or, better yet, Longbottom fumbling his way through Potions."

Swearing under his breath, Harry let the book flap closed as he transferred his wand to his quill hand. He jerked Malfoy's wand from his pocket and shoved it at the other boy. "Here. Take it. Cast Lumos and shut up."

Brows stretching toward his hairline, Draco, indeed, shut up and snatched his wand from Harry's grip. At least for a second.

"Feeling a bit braver, aren't we?"

"Nox," Harry said.

"Shit... Lumos!"

Blue light flooded the pitch-black room again, illuminating Draco's saucer eyes and occupying his hawthorn wand. Something else Harry could recall about their detention in the forest: Draco didn't thrive in the dark.

"Cheers," Harry mumbled, struggling against a small grin as he dipped his quill into the inkwell, rested the book against his drawn-up knees, and scribbled a quick message to Snape. Glancing at the clock on the mantle, Harry touched the tip of his quill to the hour listed at the top of the page and pressed it against the parchment; the numbers glowed, recording the time.

Sobering rather quickly, Harry gazed down at the message, his stomach tight and watery at the same time. The chance that Snape had managed to carry his own book with him to see Harry's message was slim. But at some point, his professor would see it. Harry hoped with all his heart that he would.

Flipping the book to the blank pages in the back, Harry tore off a half-sheet from the bottom and started a second quick note. This one, he'd send back through the Floo:

Hermione,

Don't be angry, but I had to leave. Please don't come after me this time…it's not safe.

I'm really sorry. Thanks for everything.

Harry

TBC...


A/N: Thank you for the encouraging messages! The next chapter will come soon-it really will. I think I've found my stride again :). This chapter contains several allusions to Emerald Eyes, if certain memories or references left you scratching your head...(also thinking about polishing up that story with some revisions, as my writing style has evolved and hopefully matured a bit...).