I know this is late. It's so late I'm not even going to try and make an excuse for it, though I will say that part of the blame goes to my newfound employment, which has been stealing most of my spare time and leaving me exhausted for the rest of it. This is not the end of the story; there's at least one more part, perhaps two. Hopefully those won't take quite so long as this one.
I also notify you now, this part is a bit darker than the rest of the fic, and rather violent. I'd rate this one PG13 to R for violence, depending on your tastes, so don't say I didn't warn you. ^_^ I don't think I left it at a cliffhanger; that last one was so nasty, I tried to leave at least some sense of temporary closure. :)
The Truth: The Rest of It
Quite fortunately for Harry, his first instinct was to freeze where he was. Snape's knife was pressed so hard into his neck that the slightest movement could have cost him his head, and so he stood as motionless as a statue.
His eyes darted up and down the corridor, hoping mightily for some sign of activity, but his supply of weird rescuers seemed to have run out. Silently he cursed himself for ever leaving the Hall, but his fear for Ron and Hermione was only made the worse--if he was attacked this close to the Hall, Lord knew what had happened to his friends.
"Oh, you needn't worry about your friends, Potter," Snape hissed softly, as though reading Harry's mind. "They have suffered no long-term harm." He removed his hand from Harry's mouth, and Harry fought the urge to cough. Silently he weighed his options, figured he was buggered either way, and ventured a whispered question.
"W-What do you want from me?" he asked, hoping his sudden query wouldn't surprise the Potions master into slicing his head off--the man had obviously gone round the bend at last, and Harry didn't want to think about what he might do if startled.
"Oh, Potter, honestly," Snape snarled, and before Harry could blink he found himself backed against the cold stone wall, the knife still under his chin and Snape's eyes boring into his, his free hand clenching Harry's collar and keeping him pinned to the wall. "All your odious 'detective work' and you still don't know?" His lips curled into a sneer.
Harry stared at him, petrified. However mad Snape had seemed over the course of the last year, however unstable the glint in his eyes had been, it was nothing to the look of him now. His teeth were bared in an almost animal snarl, his hair hanging in his face and falling in a knotted tangle to his shoulders. But far worse than this asylum appearance was the glimmer that shone in his empty black eyes--it was the gleam of the utterly insane, and it was resting companionably beside the twinkle of the homicidal.
Harry shook his head faintly, clamping his mouth shut tight to keep his heart from escaping through it. His only thought was the miserable realization that he had been right, Snape had been out to kill him, and that he had likely lived through what was probably the most disastrous battle in wizarding history only to be disemboweled by his own Potions teacher.
"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" he asked intelligently, the words forcing themselves out before he could stop them.
Snape's mouth twisted into a horrible parody of a smile. "My, but you catch on quick, Potter," he whispered, a tone of such mocking in his voice that it fairly stung Harry's ears. "Of course I am."
"Why?" he asked tremulously, before Snape could gather his wits and decapitate him. He was far more terrified now than he had been while fighting Slytherin, for at least Slytherin had been halfway sane--matching wits with a madman was a far stickier bit of work than he was capable of dealing with right now, and it was made all the more nerve-wracking by the fact that the situation was entirely out of his control.
Snape's malicious smirk faded a bit, and Harry felt his stomach drop. For a second something like panic flitted across the face of the Potions master, and his hand jerked almost imperceptibly against Harry's throat. Harry's feet shifted uncomfortably in the rubble, and a sudden draft made him shiver as Snape's half-mad eyes bored into his. It was clear the question had caught him off-guard, but whether this was good or bad remained to be seen.
"Does it really matter, Potter?" he said after a moment. His voice was soft and malicious, but Harry thought he could detect the slightest waver of uncertainty in it as well. "Whatever my reasons, they'll have little effect on the end result." The point of the knife dug ever so slightly deeper into Harry's throat, as if to emphasize his last words.
Harry gulped, sweat trickling down his temple. His heart was pounding like mad, and the sudden dig of the blade seemed to drive every thought, sane or otherwise, from his head. He felt his knees start to wobble and knew it was only a matter of time before they gave way completely, but before all his hope could seep out through his feet something cut through his panicked reverie.
-Stall him-
Harry started, his eyes widening. What the--? he thought, but the Voice cut him off.
-You heard me, kid, stall him. Help is on the way.-
It was the Voice of the Neverstone, but Harry didn't even pause to fully register this--it said to stall Snape, and stall him Harry must, if he didn't want to join Nearly Headless Nick.
"Uh...er..." he muttered, searching valiantly for something resembling a full sentence. "If you're going to kill me and all, I think I at least ought to know...why, right?" He cringed, realizing this probably wasn't the wisest thing he could have said. He half expected Snape to stare at him as though he were the one who'd gone off his rocker, but he did nothing of the sort--his eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Harry felt a horrible sinking sensation as he recalled the many occasions Snape had seemingly read his mind.
A slow, horrible smile crept across his face, far worse than any of the madhouse smirks he'd thus far delivered--this was a knowing smile, a grin of such terrible comprehending malevolence that the very sight of it made Harry fairly quake with terror.
"I see," he whispered, so softly Harry could scarcely hear him. There was a faint note of respect in his voice, and he brought his eyes very close to Harry's, searching them. "Congratulations," he said. "I did not think it possible that one could bond with a Stone so quickly...I must say, I am impressed."
Harry shrank back further against the wall, his frail optimism shattering. Snape's eyes glinted wickedly, his knife matching Harry's recoil, but whatever horrid thing he was about to do was rather rudely interrupted.
"Well, the boy's far from stupid, you know."
Harry's heart leaped in his chest, only to jam in his throat as the blade dug hard enough into his neck to draw blood. Never had he heard such a welcome voice, and despite the fact that it was filled with cold venom he felt a wild surge of hope rise within him.
He felt Snape tense, the veins in his neck standing out as his entire body went rigid. Harry was probably in more danger now than he had been since the night his parents died, but no matter how dire the situation he could not suppress a mad, stomach-fluttering excitement that, combined with his terror and exhaustion, threatened to rob him of his recently regained consciousness.
Snape's eyes flickered away from his, and Harry ventured a glance to his right and immediately wished he hadn't. He wasn't quite prepared for what he saw.
Doors was standing in the debris near the entrance to the Great Hall, her hair an indescribable mess and wielding a sword in her spidery hand like some avenging elf-minion from Hell. In the gloom her eyes flared with unnatural brilliance, two bright and savage points of light that shone out like small beacons. Her robes were in an even worse state than Harry's, but he scarcely noticed this, for there seemed to be something incredibly...wrong...with her eyes, something other than their strange green fire that made him faintly nauseous.
"Hello, Lorna," Snape said softly, his hand tightening on Harry's collar. "How kind of you to join us."
Doors glared at him. "Snape, you've got five seconds to explain yourself before I aerate your entrails," she said, her voice quiet and terrible. Harry shivered; never had he heard a sound so full of loathing, and his already quaking stomach didn't really want to see what his aunt was going to do to the Potions master.
Snape's eyes glittered strangely. "Would you really?" he asked, and for some odd reason Harry felt his heart drop within his chest--there was something new in Snape's voice, something that he feared even worse than the man's insanity.
Doors rolled her eyes, a momentary hint of her normal self returning. "No, Snape, I'm just going to let you off my nephew and go out for a cup of tea," she snorted. "Really, use whatever you've got for a brain. As if we hadn't figured out what you were after ages ago."
To Harry's immense surprise, Snape's eyebrows raised and he let out a short, harsh laugh. "Did you now? Are you sure?"
Doors advanced on him, lazily twirling the sword in her hand. Tendrils of her wispy hair fluttered as she moved, making her look near as mad as he. "As I said, Snape, Harry's not stupid and neither am I. He told me about your little adventure with the Mirror of Erised, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out the rest of it."
Her voice was casual, but there was a steely note in it that Harry had rarely heard. He shifted uncomfortably against the wall, still very aware of the knife at his throat, and swallowed an urge to just kick Snape in the shin and run for it.
It was a good thing he didn't try, because at these words Snape twitched violently, the knife in his hand jerking dangerously. The hand grasping Harry's collar pulled him from the wall, and a moment later he found himself standing with Snape behind him, the blade still holding him prisoner and Snape's fingers digging into his collarbone.
"Lorna, I'm disappointed," he said softly. "Not at all up to your usual standard."
Doors raised her eyebrows. "Eh?" she said, cocking her head to one side. "And how's that?" Harry saw her hand wander toward her pocket, and knew she was just waiting for the right moment to spring.
Snape chuckled darkly. "You've only got half of it," he said, his knife sliding slowly along Harry's throat. "You couldn't have known the other half, for it's something I have trouble believing myself, but it's a rather crucial point." He paused.
"Harry's not the one I'm trying to kill."
Doors eyed him askance, silent for a moment. "Excuse me?" she said, surveying him keenly and looking as though she thought he'd gone cracked for sure. "You're not trying to kill Harry?" She snorted. "And this would be why you've been after poisoning him since your whole adventure with the Mirror? Why you're standing there right now with a knife at his throat?"
Snape must have nodded, for a look of incredulity crossed Doors's face. "Oh, honestly," she snapped, throwing up her hands in disbelief. "Snape, if you had to go crazy you could have at least picked a more convenient time to do it. Harry's tired, I'm tired, and the last thing I really want to do right now is have to make a mess in the hallway." She crossed her arms, glaring at him so irritably that Harry wanted to laugh.
Snape was still a moment, his grip on Harry rigid. "Oh, Lorna, really now," he murmured, his voice so low it was almost a caress. "You never did give me enough credit." And without the slightest warning Harry found himself flung aside, crashing into a heap of fallen stone as the Potions master lunged at his aunt.
For a moment Harry's vision fuzzed to black, a stabbing pain shooting through his head, and when it cleared his heart gave a horrible jolt.
"Bugger," he whispered.
Snape's dive had obviously caught Doors off her guard, for he wrenched the sword from her grasp with surprisingly little difficulty. His own knife took a wild slash at her, but Doors was not quite so out of it as all that--she caught his wrist before the blade reached her throat, and the two of them smashed into the remains of a pillar with a force that made Harry wince.
A spasm of pain flickered across Doors's face, but before she could retaliate or even recover properly Snape seized the collar of her robes and lifted her off her feet, in all likelihood intending to break her back across the pillar.
Doors lashed out with her foot and caught him in the knee, breaking free of his grasp and, to Harry's surprise, collapsing to the floor. Her face was whiter than paper, and contrary to her words she looked more ill than tired.
"Snape, you bloody idiot," she muttered, reaching for her wand.
Snape, however, was far from finished. He seized her hands before she had a chance to curse him, once again lifting her off her feet. He slammed her head hard into the wall, a sickening thud sounding through the still dimness as it made contact with the stone.
"Lorna, do you have any idea what I saw in that Mirror?" he snarled, his voice a hissing whisper and his eyes flashing with the glare of utter madness. Before Doors could recover from her daze he answered his own question, spitting the words as though they were the vilest of curses. "Oh, yes, I saw Harry, I knew I would, but that's not what frightened me so." His hands found purchase on either side of her face, his eyes boring into hers. "Harry was my son, but Lily wasn't his mother, Lorna, you were."
Ringing silence fell. As the meaning of this sank in on him Harry felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, draining all his will with it. He stared at Snape in shock and not a little revulsion, but it was nothing to the look of horror on Doors's face, which had paled about five shades at his words.
Lorna stared at him, her eyes wide, for once in her life completely stunned. Harry didn't think she could have moved if she'd wanted to. He felt his stomach churn unpleasantly, and his first thought was, 'Geeze, and I thought he liked Petunia,' followed immediately by, 'Oh, where is Dumbledore?'
-In the library- returned the Voice. -Along with most of the rest of your teachers.-
'What the hell is he doing there?!' Harry fairly exploded. 'We need him down here!'
-That's where the real Voldemort was.-
Harry groaned. 'Oh, well that's just great,' he thought. Gingerly he got to his feet, praying Snape wouldn't notice, and felt around in his pocket for his wand. He had absolutely no idea what he was going to do, but he knew he'd better do something or his aunt was going to lose the life it had taken Lupin so long to regain.
Doors had still made no response, and Snape seemed to be growing impatient. "Oh, for God's sake, Lorna, aren't you going to say anything?" he demanded. He brought the point of his knife under her chin, pushing her head back and forcing her to meet his eyes.
"Ew?" Doors offered, going faintly green. "What the hell do you want me to say, Snape--yippee? You can't just drop a bombshell like that on my head and expect me to snap out some witty comeback!" She was struggling to sit up, but the knife was making this somewhat difficult. Her face was drawn with weariness, and Harry had a feeling that all she really wanted to do right now was go curl up in her hammock and sleep for the next forty years or so.
Snape regarded her silently for a moment, his expression inscrutable. If he noticed how ill she looked he gave no sign, and Harry silently prayed that he wouldn't do anything stupid before Harry could get help. He took a tentative step towards the Hall, but Snape's voice stopped him short.
"One more move, Potter, and your aunt here is going to find herself missing her head."
Harry froze, mentally cursing just about everything. He certainly wasn't going to stand there while Snape pondered the best way to kill his aunt, but given the current situation he didn't know what else he could do.
Fortunately, he didn't have very long to agonize over the situation. Doors, who was apparently fed up with the whole state of affairs as well, quite suddenly delivered Snape a bone-cracking bitch-slap that was easily strong enough to break his jaw. The blow would have knocked him to the ground, were he not there already, and from the look of her Doors was nowhere near finished.
"Snape, you great sodding prat," she snapped, her voice beginning to rasp from overuse and delivering a fairly forceful kick to his ribs, "for God's sake, get a life." She stumbled slightly, her equilibrium clearly shot to hell, but steadied herself and glared down at him. "So you saw something--" she winced "--gut-wrenchingly horrible in the Mirror. So what? The Marauders built that thing, you know, it's by no means infallible. And even if it was, is that really any reason to kill me?" She crossed her arms, looking for all the world like an irate kindergarten teacher berating a naughty five-year-old--or she would have, had she not looked in imminent danger of passing out. A trickle of blood was working its way through her hair and down her neck, making the deathly whiteness of her face even more pronounced.
"Get up, Snape," she said wearily. "I'm letting Dumbledore deal with you."
Snape rose slowly to his feet, Doors's wand pointed at his chest. His eyes glinted with a combination of bitter hate, madness, and something else Harry couldn't quite identify.
"You want me to go find someone?" Harry asked, taking a step toward Doors.
Lorna sighed. "Go get Dumbledore," she said, glancing at him. "Tell him his Potions master has lost his marbles--"
That was as far as she got. Before Harry could blink Snape lunged forward, his fingers closing on Doors's wand and snapping it in half. Before she could even try to aim a decent punch he caught her wrist in his hand, twisting savagely and eliciting a hideous crack. He probably would have tried to rip her arm off, but apparently Lorna had had enough.
"Okay, that's it," she snarled. "I think I've been more than reasonable enough, but you've crossed about every line I've ever drawn and I'm through playing fair." Tearing her hands free, she shoved him hard in the chest and sent him stumbling backward. "Harry, forget Dumbledore. Call Eoren."
It took a moment for Harry to register that she'd spoken to him. "Who?" he started to ask, but before he had fully articulated his question it was answered.
-Oh, honestly Lorna. Sure, I thought you could handle this on your own.-
Harry nearly jumped out of his skin--in his fear he'd quite forgotten about the Neverstone and its odd Voice, though it had spoken to him but minutes before. "You mean that thing has a name?" he yelped, his surprise tearing the words from his mouth before he could stop them.
-A'course I do- the Voice responded, somewhat indignantly. -Honestly, mortals. Give them a smidge of power and all of a sudden they think they're bloody invincible, and what's more they think they're the center of the universe. Why--
Harry had a feeling that given the chance, the Voice would have carried on with this vein for at least another hour. Doors, however, had other plans.
"Eoren, for God's sake shut your gob," she said, rather crossly. "You want to give me a hand before I keel over and die?"
-Naw, I'd rather watch you croak-
"Eoren," Lorna said warningly.
-Oh, fine.-
Harry snorted, but he scarcely heard this exchange--he was far too captivated with watching Snape. The moment he had heard the strange voice every ounce of color had drained out of his already pale face, and a look of such horror crawled across it that Harry thought he was going to keel over and die. He knew he ought to be surprised that the Potions master could hear it at all, but at this point his capacity for surprise had all but disappeared.
"Lorna, you wouldn't," he fairly hissed, a hint of panic in his voice.
Doors looked annoyed. "Why not?" she snorted, flicking her bangs out of her eyes. "What is this--you want to kill me and it's just fine and dandy, but I try to do the same and all of a sudden it's wrong?"
-Well, obviously.-
"Eoren, shut up."
-Make me.-
"Grrrrr. I thought you said you were going to help me?"
-Well, what do you want me to do to the stupid prat?-
"Oh, I trust you'll think up something sufficiently nasty," Doors said, with a smirk that could only be described as evil.
-Ooh, goody. Free reign.-
Harry stared, utterly bewildered. "What the--?" he started, then stopped. "Lorna, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I destroy the Neverstone?"
Doors chuckled wearily. "Harry, honey, it would take a sight more than an explosion to wreck that thing," she said.
"Yes, but it won't take much at all for it to destroy us," Snape snarled, the unease in his voice growing.
"Oh, stuff it, Snape, it'll do nothing of the sort," Doors said, sounding more annoyed than ever. "Wait, I take that back--it certainly might do something nasty to you. In fact, I'm rather hoping it will."
She closed her eyes and swayed slightly, and Harry started to wonder just what in hell was wrong with her--she'd looked a wreck long before Snape decided to use her head for a Quaffle, and he had a nasty suspicion it was more than just weariness that made her stumble. Without thinking he took a step forward and laid a hand on her arm, but recoiled almost at once--even through her robes, her arm was colder than ice, and whatever frost had settled on her skin seemed to chill the very air around her.
"What the--" he started, but she cut him off.
"Nice, no?" she said. "Lorna Doors, human ice cube." Her eyes stayed trained on Snape, who was still looking rather panicked and not at all as though he were registering anything around him. "If you'll wait just a moment, Harry, you'll soon understand."
Harry privately doubted this, but knew better than to say so--something was profoundly wrong with his aunt, of that he was certain, but at this point he wasn't quite sure that they hadn't all gone off their onions.
Doors reached out and took Snape's hand in hers, flipping it over and scrutinizing his palm closely. Clearly she wasn't going to just stand around and wait for the Neverstone to get its act together and smite Snape with some horrible curse, but Harry had to wonder just what she was doing.
"Ooo, not good," she said, shaking her head. "I've never been one for Divination, but you've got the shortest life line I've ever seen. In fact, it seems to run out right about.....now."
Snape jumped as though she'd burned him and tried to draw his hand away, but Doors's fingers closed on his like a vice. A glimmer of horror had risen to join the madness in his eyes, and Harry got the distinct impression that he rather wanted to be bolting in the opposite direction right now.
"You know, Snape," Doors said conversationally, her grip turning his hand purple as the blood backed up in his veins, "you didn't really have to waste all that energy trying to kill me."
"No?" he said, in the voice of someone who answers only out of habit. He looked like he wanted to give Doors a good shove, anything to get her off his hand, but was too afraid to try. He'd gone from marauder to marauded in an astoundingly short period of time, and Harry still for the life of him couldn't figure out why. He took a step backward.
"No," Doors said, matching his retreat. Harry couldn't see her face, but he would bet her eyes were glinting with that horribly creepy light he knew he himself had inherited. "Snape, how much do you know about the Silversleeves potion?" she asked, her voice quiet and still oddly like that of a game show host.
Whatever Snape had been expecting, it clearly wasn't that--the question was odd enough to shake him from his horrified daze, and he stared at her as though she'd gone mad. "What?" he demanded, in a tone much more like his usual sneer.
"You heard me," Doors said, her fingers closing tighter on his and making something crack nastily. "What do you know about the Silversleeves potion?"
Snape winced slightly, still looking at her as though she'd sprouted an extra head. "Well, done correctly it restores a person to their state of existence prior to death," he said, clearly wondering just where this was headed. His face, which had paled to the hue of old porridge, was damp with sweat, and Harry saw his eyes dart to the knife he'd dropped on the flagstone floor.
"Exactly," Doors said, sounding as pleased as though he'd just answered a question correctly in class. "Remus used the potion to bring me back, and while he did manage to modify it so I would no longer need that cursed cane, that was the only alteration he made. Think about that for just a minute."
From the look of him Snape was thinking about it, and he was apparently coming up with as big a blank as Harry was. He tried once more to pull away from her, but Doors grabbed his other hand and crushed it in hers. "No, no, you've got to answer this," she said softly. "You say I missed a crucial point, but evidently you did as well."
Snape continued to stare at her, utterly bewildered and more uneasy than ever, and for once in his life Harry knew how he felt--he had no idea what his aunt was going on about, and he had a nasty suspicion that Snape wasn't the only lunatic in the corridor.
"Harry, stop looking at me like that," Doors snapped, not turning around. "I'm not mad."
-Bets?-
"You stay out of this, Eoren, and for God's sake would you hurry it up already?"
-Oh, bite me. I'm hurrying already.-
Doors had apparently decided Snape was hopeless, for she let out a weary sigh. "Snape, you moron," she said, her voice tired and hoarse. "You said it yourself--the Silversleeves potion returns a person exactly as they were at the hour of their death. And by then if Voldemort hadn't killed me, something...else...would have."
Slow, horrible comprehension dawned on Snape's face, and as it did Harry felt suddenly as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. A wave of horror, pity, and absolute terror washed over him, and he had to fight to keep from hitting himself.
How could he have been so stupid? Lupin had said at the very start of all this that the potion returned you as you had been--how had he not seen it? His aunt had died at the hands of Voldemort, but even if she hadn't she wouldn't have lived long...with a sickening dismay he realized just why she looked so ill, and why she had been looking ill since this whole mess began, and before he could restrain himself he had blurted out in a tremulous whisper,
"Lorna, you--you're not dying...now...are you?"
Doors looked at him, and now he recognized the red in her eyes for what it was. They seemed fairly to burn in the white of her face, the blood that trickled down her neck standing out a harsh and startling counterpoint. "Right on, Agatha Christie," she said quietly.
Harry felt the little strength that remained in his knees slowly ebb away, but before he could even begin to process the horrible shock that had descended on him his reverie was broken, rather rudely, by Snape.
"Good God," he said, a look of revulsion crossing his face as he tried once more to extricate his hands from Doors's. "Lorna, you mean to tell me you've been dying of black sickness since that cursed werewolf brought you back?" His mouth curled into its characteristic sneer. "Well, you've certainly been taking your sweet time, haven't you? Honestly, if you had to come back at all you could have at least had the graciousness to kick off after a decent interval, instead of forcing us all into this nightmare."
Had Harry not been so numb with shock he probably would have tackled Snape for that, but as it turned out that wasn't necessary--for Doors, oddly enough, was smiling.
"You think this is a nightmare?" she asked, something in her voice sounding so wicked that Harry shuddered through his stunned stupor. Her smile turned suddenly evil. "I'll give you a nightmare, Snape, one that'll make this fiasco look like a trip to wizarding Disneyland."
In a movement quicker than sight she released his hands and pressed her fingers to his temples. Snape jerked backward but Doors matched his step, the red in her eyes welling up and spilling over in a ghastly mockery of a tear. Without thinking Harry leaped forward, not knowing what she was going to do but realizing it must be terrible, but before he could reach her her eyes flared and her fingers tightened, and in a hissing whisper she spoke the word that would haunt Harry to his dying day: "Moarte."
For a moment nothing happened, and as Harry caught his aunt's arms and pulled her away from Snape he thought only of how very cold she was. However, no sooner had he done so then there came an extremely sickening squishing noise, and a moment later Snape stumbled and nearly fell to the ground.
Harry steadied Doors and ventured a look at the Potions master, and immediately wished he hadn't--he didn't think he'd seen anyone look so horrible since the Phantoms attacked Voldemort the year before. Snape's face had gone an appalling shade of ashy grey, and his eyes were wide with a horror that would have been hilarious, were it not so terribly genuine.
"What the hell did you do to me?" he demanded, clutching his left wrist and staggering. A fine mist of sweat was already gathering at his temples, though whether it was the result of nervousness or something worse, Harry didn't know.
Lorna grinned sickly, a second bloody tear working its way down her pallid face. "Merry Christmas, Snape," she whispered softly. "For once you got what you deserve."
What little color remained in Snape's face promptly disappeared, and a look of dreadful, disbelieving comprehension crawled across it. His eyes widened until they looked like a pair of black Sickles, and he made a small, strangled sputter of terror.
And so there they were: Snape, standing stunned amid the wrack and ruin of the corridor, staring in horror at Doors, who probably would have collapsed by now were Harry not holding her up. Harry himself was in a state somewhere between shock and a coma, and the dropping of this new bombshell only served to drive him deeper in.
Lord only knows how things would have fallen out from here, but before any of them could fully process the implications of the whole mess their stupor was fortunately broken by none other than Lupin, who came skidding into the corridor and halted on sight of the three.
"Harry," he said, sounding relieved. "Dumbledore's looking for you, he's trying to get everyone into the library--"
He stopped abruptly, apparently taking in the full strangeness of the scene. Harry glanced at him and saw that his eyes were still creepily yellow and his teeth still disturbingly pointed, but the half-crazed look he'd worn while attempting to dismember Pettigrew had mercifully vanished. His expression darkened, and Harry inwardly winced--he had a feeling the man's werewolf nature was still far nearer the surface than was particularly safe, and he didn't really want to see anybody get ripped to pieces.
"Does somebody want to explain to me just what's going on here?" he asked, his voice hardening. His eyes flicked toward Snape, then to the knife at his feet, then to Harry, who still had a rivulet of blood trickling down his neck and soaking the fabric of his dress robes. Doors had her hand pressed over his wound, but given her current condition he doubted she was doing much good.
Lupin stood still, seemingly torn between anger and unease. Judging from his expression he clearly thought this whole situation was Snape's fault, but he seemed loath to attack first and ask questions later. "Harry, you're bleeding," he said, eying the spreading crimson stain on Harry's robes with concern. Almost absently he sent a binding curse at Snape, pinning him where he was and threatening to topple him over if he moved. He touched his wand to Harry's neck, and a sudden warmth spread through his whole shoulder. He shivered at the contrast it made with his aunt's coldness.
"What happened here?" Lupin asked again, wiping the blood from his wand. He turned Harry's face toward him, apparently checking for some sign of a head injury. Evidently satisfied that there were none, he pulled out a handkerchief and started wiping Harry's throat, ignoring Snape, who was gawking at him like he'd gone mad. No one answered him, but he didn't seem to expect them to. He was muttering something about giving Madam Pomfrey a coronary when he noticed Doors for the first time and nearly threw up his hands in exasperation.
"Lorna, how did I know you'd be around here?" he asked, discarding his bloody handkerchief and pulling a second from his pocket. The light was so dim and Lupin so distracted that he didn't seem to notice how ill Doors looked.
He finished cleaning Harry's neck and flicked his wand at Snape, dragging on his binds and pulling him forward. "Come on, you three," he said grimly, shooting a nasty look at Snape and narrowing his yellow eyes. "Dumbledore's going to want an explan--
He stopped. In the sudden silence Harry could practically hear the blood draining from his face, as his eyes widened and a look of sudden and terrible comprehension crossed it. He looked like a man stricken, and for a moment it confused the hell out of Harry, until Doors's icy hand clamped on his arm. He glanced at her and saw her face illuminated by the faint light of Lupin's wand, her bloody tears glinting dully and standing out a ghastly counterpoint to her chalk-white face.
"Hey, Remus," she said, her head falling against Harry's shoulder and her eyes oddly glazed. "How's it going?"
Lupin stared at her, his expression a mixture of shock and horror. He looked as though someone had just walked by and stabbed him in the stomach, and Harry winced inwardly--he didn't think he'd ever seen anyone look so as though their heart had been ripped out and laid on a plate before them.
"Lorna?" Lupin whispered, his voice quiet and horrified. He gazed at her for several moments in silence, but she made no response--only returned his gaze with weary, glassy green eyes. Harry too stood still, his shoulders aching and head unsteady with weariness.
In a movement swifter than Harry's tired eyes could discern Lupin strode forward, disengaging Doors's arms from her nephew's neck. To Harry's surprise he pulled her close, holding her in an almost brotherly embrace, tangling his hands in her hair and resting his chin on the top of her head.
"God, Lorna, I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice filled with something deeper than despair. His eyes were closed, as though he were trying desperately to wish himself somewhere else. Doors made no response, but Harry had a feeling Lupin understood her anyway.
His yellow eyes opened a moment later and flicked to Harry, who still felt on the verge of collapse himself. "Harry, can you walk?" he asked quietly.
Harry nodded silently, and without waiting for further confirmation Lupin lifted Doors off her feet and started back the way he had come. Harry started after him, but had only taken a few steps before he paused uncertainly. He had a vague feeling that it wouldn't exactly be politic to leave Snape frozen in place, but he had absolutely no idea how to undo Lupin's curse, and in any case freeing a man who had just received the Black Sickness would probably be one of the stupidest things he could do.
He stood a moment, then shrugged. "Whatever," he muttered, halfheartedly pointing his wand at the Potions Master. "Accio Snape."
He hadn't expected the spell to work, but Snape came whizzing obediently after him, and Harry, with a weary shake of his head, started after Lupin and his aunt once more.
The two were headed up the once-familiar corridor to the library, now strewn with rubble and frozen as the snow outside. Harry's entire body ached as though he'd been beaten (which wasn't far from the case), but deep inside him there was a strange, dull, numbing ache that seemed to intensify as he shivered. The pain in his head had returned with a vengeance, and his vision blurred fitfully as his feet led him blindly onward.
They seemed to wander for hours, but just when Harry thought he could go no further he became aware of the great library doors standing before him, half wrenched off their hinges and coated in a fine layer of dust. The light was dim and murky, but a cheerful glow of fire could be seen through the cracks and the sound of voices, both worried and relieved, floated out to him.
Harry let out a sigh that seemed to come from his very toes, slowing as Lupin's dim outline paused ahead of him. He was so weary that the roof could have collapsed on him and he'd scarcely have noticed, but somewhere beneath his fatigue there floated a half-imagined unease that kept him from giving up and conking out completely. Silently he shook himself, his mind on nothing beyond a warm bed, but before he could even fully cohere his thoughts he found himself slamming hard into Lupin's back.
The man had stopped dead, and Harry could feel the tension coming off of him in waves. His yellow eyes searched the stone above him, before murmuring something Harry's tired ears could scarcely discern:
"Oh, that's not good."
For a moment Harry stumbled, confused and not at all wanting to know just what Lupin meant by that, but he didn't wonder for long. Snape slammed to a halt behind him, and an instant later a terrible, searing, icily brilliant light shot through the corridor, its horrible brightness stabbing into Harry's head and making him cry out in pain. Before he realized what he was doing he clapped his hands to his head and staggered, the agony nearly enough to drive him to his knees as a strange multitude of fell voices swirled around him.
He felt a sharp blow as Lupin's arm crashed into his chest, dragging him backward and pulling him behind one of the fallen timbers. Dimly he registered his aunt's eyes flaring, wide with a terror he was too weary to properly feel himself. Clawing the hair from her face, she threw her arm around Harry's neck and dragged him after her, staring nearly stricken into the radiance that had all but sealed Harry's own eyes shut.
"Eoren, NO!" she screamed, choking as a sudden stream of black blood drowned her words in a gurgling flood. Her white, frozen hand gripped Harry's arm like a band of iron, pulling him against her cold form as a spasm of coughing racked it. The light only grew more dazzling in response, a deep and almost impossible blackness swirling at its center, and the murmuring voices seemed to mock her plea, rising in a horrible screeching cadence that seemed to stab Harry's ears.
A second hand closed on his other arm, fingers digging through his robes with enough force to draw blood. Harry whirled to find it belonged to Snape, outlined hideously against the sickening brilliance. How he had broken his paralysis, Harry didn't know, but his eyes were flashing with a ghastly, menacing madness, their corners already suffused with blood that threatened to spill over at any moment. He said not a word, only grinned sickeningly and tugged with all his might on Harry's shoulder, and a moment later the two of them went crashing to the flagstone floor.
Eoren, HELP ME, he thought desperately, scarcely aware of his own cogitations. He could still feel Doors's hand clamped on his shoulder, colder than marble and twice as hard, but Snape's other hand had found purchase on his throat, and his rational thinking spiraled swiftly downward from there.
-But I AM helping- Eoren sounded almost petulant. -Lorna wanted a distraction and sure, I've brought one. Aren't the Phantoms grand enough for you?-
Harry would have choked, were he not doing so already. A vague but heavy terror dropped like a stone into his stomach, his vision blurring white as Snape's fingers dug into his throat with the strength of a vice.
The last thing he was aware of, as his dimming consciousness ebbed for the fourth time that day, was the feeling of Snape's hand as it was torn from his throat by someone far stronger than either of them. A terrible, agonized shrieking filled his ears, mingling with a malevolent laughter that made him shiver as he was pulled toward the door once more. It didn't last long--the laughter very swiftly melted into cries nearly identical to Snape's, and the light, which still managed to sear into Harry's misty eyes, flared brighter than ever before winking out with the suddenness of an extinguished torch.
And blackness fell, both in his head and around it.
****(I was going to leave you all there, but I'll not be that mean ^_^)****
Warmth. Warmth and softness, the feeling of a fat pillow beneath his head. Harry turned, snuggling deeper into the cosset of blankets that surrounded him, silently willing himself to stay asleep just a little longer. His head ached faintly, and the last thing in the world he wanted to do was have to face a wedding full of Lockharts....
Harry's eyes shot open, his memory returning with a nauseating jolt. He sat swiftly upright, clutching the blankets and staring wildly around--only to be incredibly confused by what he saw.
At first glance he seemed to be in the hospital wing, but the hospital wing wasn't this big. Row after row of beds lined the dim, lofty room, draped in what had to be every sheet and blanket in all of Hogwarts. In every one there lay a student or parent; most were sleeping, but a few were awake and apparently calm.
A faint hum of conversation filtered through the still, warm air, the voices soft and filled with a welcome tranquility that soothed Harry's jangled nerves. Early evening sunlight was filtering in from the far windows, falling across the beds and squashy armchairs that littered the floor. It appeared they were in the library, though the shelves were in such a disastrous state of disorder that Madam Pince would have fallen down twitching at the sight of it.
Realizing he was in no imminent danger, Harry felt for his glasses and slid them on--someone had thought to mend them, for which he was grateful as he glanced around the room.
The bed to his left was occupied by Fred Weasley, his freckled face still unusually pale. He was asleep, snoring slightly and occasionally kicking George, who lay across the foot of the mattress. Beyond them was Ron, his mouth open and foot dangling off the edge, and still further down lay Hermione, over whom Malfoy seemed to be standing a rather twitchy vigil, constantly searching for some sign of Dudley. The molten gold of the sunlight shimmered over all of them, lighting the world to an almost ethereal glow and seeming to rest as a silent blessing on the battered and weary of Hogwarts.
Harry rubbed his head and turned to his right, only to find an equally long line of beds stretched in that direction. Directly beside him was Doors, her face clean and not half as ghostly, sound asleep in a nest of flannel. Lupin had apparently been sitting with her, but now he too was asleep, his arm around her shoulders and her head rested against his chest. Sirius lay beyond them, sprawled across his bed and snoring far louder than Fred, a fact which drew him several dirty looks from Madam Pomfrey.
Harry lay back against his pillows, confused. Obviously they were all alive, but how long he'd been asleep and how on Earth he had gotten here were as much a mystery to him as Dudley's real weight. His mind tried to whirl with questions and wonderings, but he was so tired that it didn't get very far.
"Awake at last, are we?"
He turned, and found himself gazing into the twinkling blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore. The Headmaster was smiling, if somewhat wearily, and Harry felt his last worries melt away.
"W-What happened?" he asked, his question interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn.
It might have been his imagination, but Dumbledore's smile seemed to falter a bit. "That, my dear boy, is a far more involved question than you could possibly realized, and one which may not be answered until you are strong enough to deal with it."
Harry started to protest, but Dumbledore held up a hand. "Sleep, Harry," he said. "You are safe now, and your question shall be answered in due time. Rest assured that no lasting harm has befallen your friends." He removed Harry's glasses and set them on the rickety table beside his bed. "Sleep," he repeated, laying a hand on Harry's forehead. And sleep he did, deeply and sweetly, untroubled by dreams of any kind but filled with a security he had not felt since he first came to Hogwarts. The sun was warm on his face, and for now, if only for now, his world was at peace.
::authoress drops dead:: Okay, that wasn't too bad, was it? Harry's explanation comes in the next chapter, which may or may not be the last, depending on how long it gets. Do be a dear and review; it would just make my day. ^_^