CHAPTER 11 – Snape disappears

Sheeba asked Dumbledore where Snape had gone and the answer was that Snape had been to the second floor to extinguish the spell. Sheeba ran and took notice that the spell had been extinguished, however Snape had disappeared. Harry, who had been following her, ran as fast as he could towards the Gryffindor Tower, passing before the Fat Lady quickly and going upstairs to his room. He opened his trunk breathlessly and took off from it the Marauder's Map and activated it quickly. He looked for Severus Snape in the map and found him just a second before the teacher vanished. Snape had left Hogwarts by the passageway near the Whomping Willow.

Harry went downstairs quickly, holding the map, and ran directly at Sheeba, whom he explained to what he had seen just in an awkward way. Somebody laid a hand on his shoulder and he turned around to face Albus Dumbledore. "Harry, come with me to my office. Sheeba, try to find Snape, will you?"

Deja vú. As Harry sat on a chair at Dumbledore's office, he already knew what was going to be said. He had seen part of this scene two days before, on Sheeba's Pensieve.

"You already know you're not allowed to leave Hogwarts for anything in the world, don't you? On no account I want you trying to play hero, Harry. I'm already risking Sirius and Remus's lives, since they're going after Pettigrew under great personal risk and I don't want you thinking of waysto get out of this school and go to find what's happening. Last year, you almost got killed. Now that Voldemort's back, you're only protected under my vigillance. Understood?"

"I know it, Headmaster. Two days ago, at Sheeba's home, she showed me exactly this scene in her Pensieve."

"I understand, but I want to make it clear for you, Harry, that you need to stay safe here, away from trouble. Okay?"

"Okay."

At this moment, somebody knocked the door and Dumbledore asked this person to step in. Mad-Eye Moody's deformed face showed up in the gap between the door and the wall and greeted the two of them. Moody told them a student had disappeared. Dumbledore asked who it was and the answer made Harry's heart beat twice as fast as usual, "Cho Chang."

**

Sheeba was running through the passageway near the Whomping Willow holding Sirius's button tightly with her a hand, and holding a wand, whose tip was enlightening her way, with the other She kept repeating mentally, "Please, Sirius, stop him."

**

Sirius was running in his canine form across the places where Lupin had been. He passed past a blue door with the faintest will to check what was there behind it, and then he saw a yellow door, and ran even faster, his feet getting heavier and heavier agaisnt the floor. He saw Lupin in the end of the corridor, just in front of the green door, holding the handle. Sirius barked out loud, astonishing his friend. Then, he jumped onto Lupin, changing into his human form before he knocked Lupin down.

"Could you please tell me why you attacked me, Sirius?"

"Don't get in there. It's a trap for you."

"Who told you that?"

"Sheeba did, yesterday. She told me that if you get in this room, you'll die. Do you want to  confer she was right?"

"I honestly don't have any reasons to doubt a word from her, but I don't think it's cautious for you to enter this room alone."

"And what do you expect me to do?"

"Try to Disapparate and find Sheeba and Dumbledore."

"I guess it's impossible to Disapparate here. This is a real fortress, it wouldn't be vulnerable to something so simple."

"Even though this place was plotted by Wormtail, I've got to admit he knows how to make a wizard lose time."

"I'll get in, you get away. Find Sheeba."

**

At Hogwarts, surrounded by Ron and Hermione, Harry felt butterflies in his stomach. If somebody wanted to make him sad, this person succeeded. They could have gotten him, but why Cho? She was not even in love with him, Harry knew that, she still loved Cedric Diggory, even though it had been alomost a year since the object of her affection had died. Harry had noticed that the last time he saw her. If she gets killed or hurt because of me, Harry thought, I'll be the one who's getting mad and going to St. Mungo's.

"Do you think Snape dragged Cho Chang with him?" asked Ron while he looked aprehensively at Harry.

"He left the castle alone, I saw it on the Map."

"Besides," added Hermione, "Snape's in our side."

"Hermione, do you remember Sheeba saying Snape had deceived her?"

"Ron, that was when she thought he had cast a Confusion Spell at himself."

"And what if he did, what if he's taken away Harry's Confusion Ice?"

"Ron, Hermione, we've got to do something. I think the only way out would be following Snape. He might have seen who's taken Cho and went behind this person, so when I looked at the Map, the person who kidnapped Cho was already outside the grounds."

"Harry," Ron started, "Do you remember Sheeba telling us she's seen something sbout Snape?"

"Oh, yes! She told us he was going to London!" said Hermione cheerfully.

"Great. He still don't know how to Disapparate and we're miles away from London, what makes us start from scratch," said an ill-humored Harry. Hermione was looking at the Eye of the Tiger and saw that at that very moment, Lupin was Apparating just in front of Sheeba.

"There's a way," she said, "I have a plan."

**

Sirius opened the door and stared. The room was completely dark. Suddenly, the lights got switched on  and made him go momentarily blind (Electric light?, he thought). As soon as he opened his eyes, he heard a blast and saw a man pointing a gun at him, shooting. He felt something very soft hit his shoulder and fall down, and just then he remembered what Sheeba said about the garment she lent him. That was a Muggle bullet. And the man kept shooting. Sirius crouched behind a desk and noticed that was a non-magical room. Actualy, it had all the characteristics of a Muggle room: there was even a telephone on the desk. Sirius looked at one of the bullets the man had shot at him and found out why Lupin could not enter this room: those were silver bullets. He stopped a moment to think about what he was going to do and looked at the Muggle by the gap in the desk. The man was obviously under a strong Imperius Curse. So, the wizard who cast this spell could not be so far... he could not do anything that might put this Muggle's life in danger., he did not want to have to be blamed by the Ministry for a death, and whoever made him get to that place knew it. He heard a voice, out of the blue, talk to the Muggle, "His head, you nitwit, aim at his head and don't miss the target!"

Sirius knew that voice. It belonged to Wormtail. He did not know if what he was going to do would work, but anyway, he remembered Sheeba told him he would get out of that place alive.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted and the gun the Muggle guy was holding flied away and stopped at Sirius's hand.

He noticed the man was wearing policeman uniform and heard what Wormtail said next, "Moron! You'll pay for it! Crucio!" the policeman started yelling in pain and Sirius thought Wormtail was hidden under an Invisibility Cloak. Suddenly, he notice what could help him: the ceiling was full of sprinklers. Without wasting anymore minutes, Sirius turned the gun into a Filisbuster Fire and threw it at the ceiling. It exploded and made the Sprinklers start spouting water everywhere, and he saw a place in the middle of the air where the water was dripping.

"Impedimenta!" Sirius pointed at the shadow, but it opened a door behind itself and apparently escaped by a corridor. Before following it, Sirius made sure the Muggle policeman was going to be all right. There was water everywhere and Sirius improvised a spell to stop the sprinklers. It was almost nonsense their being there... the door at the subterranean passage may have been a doorway that headed to another room, in some Muggle building. He left by the same door as Wormtail and noticed he was exactly stepping out of the orange door at the maze. Doubtlessly, it was a Muggle building and now he was leaving again by another doorway. Everything's just here to confuse people, he thought. Minus two doors. One of them may head ahead. He decided entering the pixie's room. He opened the door carefully and shouted, poiting at the room, "Impedimenta!"

There was not anymore pixies in the room. Sirius's spell hit a mirror and almost hit him back. The room was full of mirrors, "It must be here," he thought.