FIFTEEN
The song sank like a hook into each of them, drawing them down the trodden paths where Hagrid made his rounds, and then deeper, where there was no light and no clear way to follow. It was not even necessary to look around to know which way to go. Harry advanced in the lead, zeroing in on the sound of his mother's voice.
Blacks and bays . . . dapples and greys . . . coach, and six-a little horses . . . .
There was a slight pause behind him when Hermione got caught in bramble. Harry saw it out of the corner of his eye, but couldn't bring himself to turn to help. Ron went to release her, but she was so fixed on whatever she was hearing that she didn't seem to notice the tears in her cloak or the scratches on her legs. Soon the song grew so loud it was not even necessary to strain to hear it. Beyond the trees, a large patch radiated a cold glow--moonlight on a snowy clearing.
"I . . . didn't expect it to be like this, Harry." Hermione's voice trembled.
"Put your plugs in, then. You don't have to go." He still couldn't turn his head to see her; it was as if his neck had locked into position, forcing him to stare only at that bright opening between the trees.
She wiped her wet face again. "I'll be all right. We've got to go on." She stuck out her arm again. "Hold my hand, Ron."
He took it without seeing it. "They're in that meadow, aren't they, Harry?" Ron sounded nothing like himself--his voice was deeper somehow, older, more like his brother Percy's voice than his own.
"Yes. Come on. Earplugs ready, both of you." Under his cloak he fumbled for the sharp rowan stake.
This is the second time a Potter's saved your life, Snape. I hope you appreciate it this time around.
Harry stepped into the clearing and stood there blinking and shielding his eyes from the glare. Even as faint as the moon was tonight, it was dazzling on the snowy field, made worse by his eyes adjusting to the dimness in the Forest. He could feel Hermione and Ron behind him, their hands still locked, but he still couldn't turn to see them.
Evensong kneeled in the snow, her white hair floating, her garb an even cleaner white than the field around her. Snape's dark head lay in her lap. Between them, a black, terrible mist gathered, seeming to emerged from every hole in Snape's face, and Evensong had gathered herself close to him, close enough to kiss. The blackness drained from him to her, and she fed on it like water.
The frightful buzzing feeling of the scar made the hairs on Harry's arm lift, and the song grew louder and louder in his ears. Unconsciously, he took a step forward, then another, and another. After the first one he tried to stop, frantically telling himself it was murder, it was suicide, but unable to prevent his own legs from taking one step after another. He was walking full speed, unable to control it.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted over the song. "Earplugs!"
Still moving forward fast, almost at a run as he drew closer, he fumbled in his breast pocket and slapped the first earplug in. The feeling faded instantly. With the other plug in place, something strange happened: suddenly he could still hear the night wind, the forest sounds, could even hear Snape's shattered breathing, but the song vanished.
"Yvaine, stop!"
Her head jerked up; her wide, frightened eyes bulged, vividly grey. At the same time, the music in Harry's head faded away, and he found himself in the middle of the field, facing her. Slowly her hair fell down to her shoulders. The dark cloud broke apart and blew away like smoke.
"Harry?" She shifted herself, carefully lowering Snape to the ground as she stood. The winter wind caught her white cloak as she came forward, her hands lifting toward him. "Why did you--"
His hand closed around the stake in his pocket and gripped it tight. "We translated the laying ceremony. We know how to get rid of you. We brought everything we needed. Now get away from Snape."
She held perfectly still, poised like a deer as her eyes filled with terror. She stepped back again, away from Snape, away from Harry. "Harry. You don't want to do this now. Please, go away."
"Get away from him. Ron!" He heard Ron moving behind him, but didn't dare look away from Evensong. This time he would definitely have to watch the face rather than the body for an attack. "Check Snape. See if he's still alive." He tossed Ron the last set of plugs. "And put those in his ears."
Ron ran to Snape, put his two fingers to the side of the professor's neck, as Evensong turned back to Harry. She was breathing hard. "Don't do this. Please."
"I'm not going to do anything to you. Just go. Get out of here."
"He's okay!" said Ron from somewhere behind him. "Just cold. I think he'll come to in a minute."
Her head went up again, the old Faerie pride that would only allow her to plead for so long. "So why not? Go ahead. You've got the stake, I suppose. Here's my heart." She opened up her white cloak, parting the velvet above the swell of her breast. Suddenly he smelled cinnamon; and that vertigo feeling, the black spot, rose in his mind. She was less than a yard from him; if he'd wanted, he could lunge forward and run it into her. Inside the folds of his cloak, his hand unfolded from the stake and locked tight around something else.
At the edge of the field Hermione cried, "Stake the bitch, Harry!"
Ron sounded close to tears. "Harry, do it!"
He whipped his hand from his pocket at last. Evensong recoiled, and Ron turned his face away as if anticipating a spout of gore, but what dangled from his fist now was a string of bright golden bells.
He shook them rapidly, pushing them into her face. The effect was immediate and terrifying: all at once her soft, pale face seemed to peel off in strips, as if it were made of nothing more than old rags, and yellow-grey flowed from her scalp to the very tips of her hair. She crouched in a ball, covering her ears, screaming something that only Hermione could probably understand.
"Are you going to leave yet?"
"Harry, put those away, for the Lady's name, and let me explain!"
He lowered his hand but didn't dare let go of the bells.
Tears ran from Evensong's fiery red eyes. She unfolded from her tightly hunched knot, still frightened. "You were right. I don't know how you figured it out. I've been passing myself off as a true bean sidhe for centuries, and so far no one's come close to guessing anything."
"She's a BBC, Harry, do it!" Ron roared.
"Quiet, Ron. Look after Snape." Inside he was shaking. "So you lied to me that night in the passage. Snape told me all of the Faerie were liars."
"Of course I lied to you. You didn't expect me to say anything in front of Severus, did you? He already mistrusted me, even though he thought I was only performing a Repellment. If he'd thought for a minute I was anything other than a banshee, he might have started putting things together, the way you seem to have done." She sounded sulky, as if it were all somehow Harry's fault.
"The only reason he didn't put anything together was because he couldn't smell the key on himself," said Harry. "I couldn't. If he had done, he would have realised you'd never taken whatever spell it was off him. Repellment or otherwise."
She took another step toward him. On his knees in the snow, Ron all but whined, "Will you please for the love of God put a stake in her, Harry? She's only trying to trick you."
She only shook her head. "No, I'm not. Not anymore. You figured out the last of it. I can't lie to you anymore." She shrugged, kicked a lump of snow at her feet, and added bitterly, "Not that I wouldn't if I were still able to . . . ."
Hermione had drawn nearer. She stood now over Snape, her hand on Ron's shoulder. Incredibly, she wore a faint smile, even though she was shivering with the cold. "True name."
Evensong nodded. "Yes, Yvaine is my true name. The only one who ever called me that was him." She nodded at Snape. "And Dumbledore. If I hadn't thought I'd be safe here, I never would have used it."
"Anyone who calls one of the Faerie by their true name can make them speak the truth," Hermione said to Harry's perplexed reaction. "It's one of the rules they live by." The smile grew a little more confident. "Found that out searching my thesis. Snape called you by your true name all the time, though; why didn't you tell him when he asked?"
"I can tell you," said Harry. "Because he never asked. Because he trusted her."
"I saved your life on the other side, Harry! Severus would have killed you! Show some compassion."
"This is compassion. I'm giving you a chance. It's up to you."
Evensong turned her face away. It was snowing again, harder, and against the flurry Evensong's pale outlines were lost. Ron laboured to stand, brushing snow off his knees as he drew himself close behind Harry. His eyes were grave but implacable, very much resembling Dumbledore's. Hermione positioned herself on the other side of him, her wand clenched tight in her white-knuckled fist. There was an unyielding steel to her posture, one that McGonagall would have admired.
"Snape is almost back to normal, and I wouldn't want to be you when he wakes up," said Ron coldly. "Either spill whatever you have to say or clear out of here."
"I have nothing more to say. I've done evil and there's nothing I can do to change it." As if she'd only just realised what had happened, she touched her face and drew up her hood to conceal it. Her voice was peculiar, strangled and tight. "You're all too young to know anything about trying to be something you're not. Or about wanting something you know you can't have."
"Like hell we don't know," growled Ron. "We're teenagers."
"Did you do anything else he'd like to know about?" asked Harry. "I mean, besides lie to him and lie to me and to Dumbledore and half the ruddy school and take Snape's heart and tramp on it, did you do anything else?"
Evensong was looking at Hermione, oddly enough. Hermione only stared back, intensely. "I think what Harry's trying to ask is how many years you took."
"Only seven. But I didn't--"
"Do you love him?" asked Harry. Ron's head lifted in concern, and Hermione shot a fast, frightened look at Harry.
Evensong's pale brown crinkled. "What?"
"Do you? Because when he wakes up I'm going to tell him everything I've seen, everything I've found out. We both know what kind of man he is. There won't be a place on earth you could hide if he really wanted to find you. But if you're gone by the time he comes round, I won't say a word of any of it. To anyone. Ron, Hermione, and I will leave, and let him wake up and think whatever he wants to think. Between the lot of us we've got all the material we need to kill you. Now choose."
"Spoken like a Slytherin, Potter."
Evensong clapped her hands to her mouth, trying to take back her words as she whirled to face her lover. None of them had heard him stand up. When he wanted, he could be as quiet as a cat. "Severus--"
Before the three of them could say anything, before Evensong could lift a hand to protect herself, Snape backhanded her with a loud pop that rang in the silence. She tripped over her feet, held up only by Snape's strong hold on her cloak-front. The next blow was a fist across her jaw; Evensong didn't make a sound, but she seemed to go limp as Snape's hand went back for the third time, folding into herself like a flower, sinking to the ground
Hermione screamed, more out of shock than anything, and lunged forward as if to spring at Snape, but Ron locked his arms around her ribs and held her firm, putting his hand on Harry's back as he started in. "Don't, mate. You probably shouldn't come between this."
Harry thrust Ron out of the way and latched on to Snape's upraised arm. "Don't bloody hit her again, Snape!"
"You stay out of this!" He tried to shake Harry off. Harry braced his legs and held firm. His hands broke away from Evensong as he shoved Harry aside.
Harry staggered, but didn't lose his feet. "Back off, Severus. Let Dumbledore handle her."
"Do you want some, too, Potter? Stay out."
Without warning a large black body barrelled between Ron and Hermione. It knocked Harry to his back on the ground and leapt toward Snape's face, teeth snapping and slobber flying. For a fleeting moment Harry thought it was Sirius, but the reality was the next best substitute. It was Fang.
"What in hell's goin' on? Fang! Here!"
Fang snarled, deep in his throat, and shook Snape's arm between his jaws. Evensong crawled across the snow, laying her hands on the boarhound's muzzle, trying to pry him loose, just as Hagrid burst from between the trees. His crossbow was drawn, aimed outward. When he saw the three students, along with two professors, one of whom was pouring with blood, his bushy eyebrows shot up. He took his finger off the trigger.
"Fang! Lay off! Harry, pull 'im off, 'fore he eats yer Potions teacher!"
Harry yanked with all his weight on Fang's collar, falling backwards again as Evensong's sharp fist hit the dog on the muzzle. He finally released his grip, allowing Harry to pry his jaws apart. Fang lunged toward Snape, teeth snapping inches away his target.
Snape's bleeding arm saturated his black cloak, blotching the snow. He kicked Fang's face away, cursed, used his heels to push himself backwards across the ground. The dog nearly ripped away from Harry's double-handed hold until Hermione wrapped her arms around the dog's chest.
Hagrid rapidly assessed the wound, tore back the ragged wing of the cloak, and clamped his hand hard above Snape's elbow, thumb pressed hard to the professor's inner arm. "I sure as hell hope one of yeh brought yer wand. Goddamn dog nicked a vein."
Hermione stood forward, looking to Snape for approval. "Haematoma finis, Professor?" It only made sense Hermione would ask permission first.
Snape nodded, teeth clenched. He managed to extended the rapidly purpling limb. "Yes, Miss Granger. If you would."
Hagrid still looked grave. He took his not-too-clean scarf from around his neck and tied it tight around Snape's arm. "Gonna have ter get yerself to the hospital wing, it looks like, Sev. That little spell ain't gonna stop it, but it'll keep yeh from bleedin' out 'fore I get yeh back to Hogwarts."
"Don't . . . call . . . me . . . Sev."
"Sorry, Severus. C'mon." He hauled Snape to his feet easily. "One of you boys, get his other arm."
Ron looked at Harry, then went to him, throwing Snape's unhurt arm over his shoulder. Harry felt sick to the bone, unable to move from the spot. Hermione was next to Evensong, examining the cut on her cheek, holding her hands and murmuring in concern. Gradually, Evensong rose, leaning on Hermione for support.
"Come on, all of yeh. Let's get outta this weather." He jerked his head toward Harry and said quietly, "I hate ter do this, Harry, but this is gonna have ter be reported to Dumbledore. You know that. I'm real disappointed with you lot. Yeh should know better." With the same sad, unmovable condemnation, he looked at Evensong and Snape. "You too, Professors. Sorry."
