In short order, Snape stalked back into the Great Hall holding a small bottle of clear liquid in his hand. His face wore a grim determined expression, and his eyes glittered dangerously. He walked over to Malfoy, who was looking very nervous, despite his bravado.
"This is your last chance, Lucius. Tell us what we want to know, or I'll use the Veritaserum on you. You'll be spilling your guts all over the room, if I force you to drink this," Snape stated coldly. Hatred radiated from him like the heat of the sun.
Malfoy glared at Snape, equally full of hate and anger. "You don't scare me, Severus! I've been taking truth serum antidotes for weeks. You can just go to hell!"
Snape smiled coldly back. "Not yet, I think."
Eager to get this over with and get to rescuing his friend, Black stepped up and grabbed Malfoy by his flaxen hair and held him still. Snape clamped the wizard's nose shut, and when Malfoy opened his mouth reflexively, he dumped half the bottle down his throat.
A trifle alarmed at the excessive amount of potion that his Potions Master had just fed to the imprisoned wizard, Dumbledore glanced sharply at Snape. "Isn't that a rather large dose, Severus?"
Snape stared stonily back at him, totally unruffled by his Headmaster's concern for his hated enemy. "If he's truly been taking truth serum antidotes for weeks, Albus, a stronger dose will be necessary to achieve the desired effect."
The Headmaster frowned heavily. "If he hasn't, he may never come out from under the effects of the potion."
Black chuckled. "Wouldn't that be a shame! Lucius Malfoy forced to be truthful for the rest of his life."
Unimpressed by any concern for Malfoy's well being, Snape merely stared wordlessly at Dumbledore, then turned his attention back to Malfoy. The usually impressive wizard had gone limp in his bindings. His eyes had glazed over and his mouth hung slack. He'd impress no one with his elegance and breeding at the moment.
"Where are Evangeline and Remus Lupin?" Snape asked coldly. You could chill a gallon of pumpkin juice with the temperature of his demanding voice at the moment.
Malfoy just stared.
Snape put his hand under Malfoy's chin and roughly raised his head until their eyes met.
"Where are Evangeline and Remus Lupin?" He repeated the question in the same icy yet intense tone of voice.
Malfoy blinked and muttered dreamily, "They're together, locked in an abandoned tower, deep in the Forbidden Forest."
Rejoicing internally at his success, Snape nodded in satisfaction. "That's better, Lucius. How can we find this tower?"
"It's on the northern edge of the protective wards, near where the stream comes through the woods going to your lake. You can't see it well from the air because it's not very high. There's a path that goes into the woods just north of the castle. It'll take you right to it."
"How long will it take to get there on foot?" Worry that the time that remained to them might not be enough, gnawed at Snape's mind.
"If you hurry…half an hour. The woods get very thick in spots. You can't easily fly through it."
Snape glanced up anxiously at Dumbledore. "How much time until moonrise, Albus?"
With a pained expression on her face, McGonagall answered, "40 minutes, Severus. You have no time to waste."
Without another word, Snape dropped Malfoy's head like a rock, turned abruptly, and ran from the room as fast as he could, followed quickly by Black.
Dumbledore watched them go with concern, then he turned to McGonagall.
"Minerva, would you take Miss Collins and Miss Hamilton into the small parlor, where it will be more comfortable to await news."
McGonagall glanced at the lolling figure of Lucius Malfoy and nodded. "Certainly, Albus." She gestured for the young women to precede her across the room. Once they went into the parlor and closed the door, Dumbledore turned grimly back to Malfoy.
"Now, Lucius, you and I are going to have a little chat about a few other things."
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Snape ran quickly through the woods. He held his glowing wand out in front of him, following in the tracks of the large dog that Sirius Black had become. Although it wasn't dark yet, the woods were very close and dim, and the undergrowth thick. He couldn't afford to trip and get held up, as the path was indeed narrow and rather indistinct in spots. They had to get to the tower in time. They had to! He couldn't be too late. He couldn't fail Evangeline again. Never again! His heart pounded desperately as he ran and ran.
He tried to stay focused on rescuing Evangeline, finding her safe and unharmed was all that mattered! Yet he couldn't help but hear Lucius Malfoy's ugly voice pounding unceasingly in his head. "He'd just finished making love to her when I left them!" A meaningless painful taunt or the ugly truth? Snape found he was afraid to know which.
Suddenly he came to a downed tree across the path. He climbed over it and several others behind it. Then he came around a corner to find Black standing there waiting for him. Raising a questioning eyebrow, he looked at Black wordlessly. Black nodded over his shoulder.
"It's right over there in a clearing. Humpty and Dumpty are standing guard. I figured that we should probably tackle them together."
They crept to the edge of the clearing. Suddenly they heard howling and screaming coming from inside the tower. As panic seized his heart in an iron grip, Snape looked up. The moon was in the sky.
"No!!" he screamed frantically. Without another thought, he plunged out of the woods and flattened the surprised Crabbe and Goyle with hexes, then he aimed his wand at the door. His first blast was not completely effective. So Black added his strength to Snape's, and the door was blasted off its hinges.
Immediately, a monstrous wolf lunged out of the doorway. It leaped over the prone bodies of its guards, and bounded off into the thick woods vanishing quickly into the undergrowth.
Snape stood there frozen in horror and stared at the open doorway, trying to make his legs move, so he could go over and look inside. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, slowly, he opened his eyes and began to walk toward the tower as though he was being pulled on a string. The thought of finding Evangeline's bloody mangled body inside the tower ripped into his soul as he forced himself to cross the clearing. How could he go on? How could he deal with her loss in such a horrid way, when they were so close to finally being happy together?
Reluctantly, Black followed the terrified wizard, no more anxious than Snape to see what they feared they would find inside. The animagus found himself wondering what he could possibly do or say to the Potions Master if Evangeline's remains were indeed inside the tower; the very last thing he ever thought he'd be doing was trying to console Severus Snape about anything. Steeling themselves for an ordeal, they walked into the tower together and stared around in surprise. It appeared to be empty, except for a pile of torn brown robes…Lupin's clothes.
Where in heaven's name was Evangeline? Had Malfoy lied under the effects of Veritaserum? Snape wouldn't have thought that possible…especially not after having ingested such a large dose.
Then an amused voice floated down to them from above.
"You know, in all of the fairy tales I've read, the prince arrives before the princess is torn to shreds by the big bad wolf."
Snape's heart lurched hopefully, and he closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, then he opened them and looked up. Evangeline was sitting on the support beams under the roof, smiling down at them.
Snape smiled up at her, almost dizzy with the intense relief of finding her alive. "I apologize for the tardy rescue "princess", but you seem to have done just fine all on your own. However did you get up there?"
She smiled ruefully down at them. "It's amazing how easy it is to climb up a rough stone wall when you're scared out of your mind. I'm not so sure that I can climb back down again, though."
Black chuckled, also intensely relieved to find her alive. "Well, that's just as well, "princess". It'll give the "prince" here some part in the rescue." He smirked at Snape, who frowned at him in annoyance and levitated Evangeline down to the ground.
Snape's alarm returned full force when he saw her lack of clothes, and her bruised and battered condition up close. Malfoy had obviously beaten her severely, but was that all he did…all they did?
"Evangeline! What did Malfoy do to you?" he asked in concern…scared of the answer.
Not sure that she could face explaining, she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his robes. "No, permanent damage, Severus. I promise. Just let me enjoy the feeling of your arms around me once more. I was so afraid I'd never see you again." Wanting to comfort her, he quickly complied with her request, holding her tightly against him, savoring the feeling of having her in his arms once more, alive and safe. All the while, painful questions whirled around in his mind, punctuated by Malfoy's sneering voice. "He'd just finished making love to her…making love to her…making love to her".
Black took a step toward them and something crunched under his shoe. He looked down. "What's this?" He bent down to take a closer look.
Evangeline saw him poke at the remains of Lupin's poison pill.
"Be careful, Sirius. That's poison," she whispered in a tearful voice.
He stood up and looked at her in confusion. "Poison?"
She nodded solemnly. "It belonged to Remus. He kept it secreted in the hem of his robe. If we hadn't figured out a way to keep me safe, it would have been his body you'd have found here, not mine. He was going to kill himself to keep me alive!" Her eyes filled with tears, and she clutched Snape tighter and began to cry, as all the pain and terror of the past few hours overwhelmed her once again.
Black and Snape exchanged somber glances over her head, as Snape held her close and tried his best to comfort her.
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