Visions in the Night Sky
Chapter 12: Chaos and Captivity
A month had passed since the day Radwan Caleb Snape was born. His parents, feeling rather cooped up on this gloriously clear January day, bundled up and joined the students in Hogsmeade for the day. Merewen was grateful for the opportunity to stretch her legs again, and Severus was glad for the fresh air and opportunity to spend more time with his new family.
"You mean showing off your family," Merewen teased as she wrapped the baby in his warm bunting and blanket. Severus blushed a bit. He couldn't refute it. He knew she was right. Fastening Merewen's winter cloak over her shoulders and then putting on his own, the Snapes rode by carriage to Hogsmeade to join the others in town.
Taking a deep breath, Merewen sighed and then turned her sparkling eyes to her husband, who wore the grand smile of a man who for right now, was completely content. He looked back at her and kissed her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as they walked through town.
"What was that for?" Merewen asked playfully.
"For changing my life for the better," Severus said softly. Merewen smiled again. A distant screaming pulled the happy family from their dreamy conversation. Severus and Merewen looked up to see that the students up in the distance were falling unconscious to the snow. Severus produced his wand as two banshees descended on the helpless crowds of students, teachers and villagers.
The banshee wailed again and Merewen started to feel dizzy. She dropped to her knees and lay down on the ground, afraid that if she fainted, she might drop the baby. Severus saw her go down and panicked.
"Merewen!" he cried.
"I'm so dizzy!" Merewen shouted above the wail of the banshee. Severus knelt beside her, firing defensive spells in vain as the banshee passed over them. Severus tried to clasp his hands over his ears but it was too late. Dizziness overcame him and he collapsed, covering Merewen and the baby with his body before losing consciousness.
When Severus awoke, the dim light and damp air of a dungeon prison assaulted his senses. When his eyes adjusted to the surroundings, he could make out the silhouette of a black cloak and a mask. A heavy, black gloved hand slowly reached to remove the mask.
"Lucius?"
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Pounding on the door of the Headmaster's office startled Albus and Minerva out of a sound sleep. The hand behind the awakening from their afternoon nap belonged to Harry James Potter, and he, along with other seventh years present at the scene of the banshee onslaught. The banshees had been accompanied by the same band of death eaters responsible for the attack that took Severus away from Hogwarts for all that time the previous year.
"Professor Dumbledore! Professor McGonagall!" Harry shouted. When Harry frantically told them what happened in Hogsmeade, it didn't take long for the two elder wizards to gather themselves together and prepare to follow Harry back to the scene. Albus stopped his wife at the door.
"I am NOT staying here!" Minerva shouted.
"You are carrying my child!" Albus insisted, for once the tenderness gone from his voice and replaced with fear.
"But what can I do here?" Minerva cried.
"Help Poppy with the injured," Albus ordered as he turned to go.
"Albus!" Minerva cried. Albus turned.
"Be careful, my love!" Minerva wept, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him. He hungrily kissed her back and then released her to his arms length to look at her. Minerva looked to Harry. In this, his last year, he had grown to eye level with her and then some. She gathered Harry into her arms and held him in a rib crushing hug. She took his head in her hands and made him look at her.
"Listen to me, Harry," she said softly. "I know you've never known the love of a mother, but I want you to know that my love, a mother's love, goes with you and your friends tonight! I've loved you as a son since you were just a baby, Harry. Please, my son, come home with your shield…not on it!" Harry fought the hot tears that fell from his eyes as he pulled her close and hugged her again. With this, the Boy Who Lived and the Only Wizard He Ever Feared left Hogwarts to go to battle.
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Minerva did her best to help Poppy with the students who arrived at the hospital wing. Many only needed minor treatment and then to be sent back to their dormitories to rest. By the time she and Poppy finished, it was late evening and Albus had not returned. Come to think of it, many had not returned to the castle, among them, Severus, Merewen, and their baby son.
"There's something wrong!" Minerva cried, pacing the floor of the now quiet hospital wing.
"There's nothing we can do without knowing where to look, Minerva!" Poppy replied. Helpless, Minerva returned to her tower bedroom and sobbed herself to sleep. Her whole world, and that of every other wizard and witch in the world was coming undone tonight.
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Draco Malfoy burst back into the Slytherin common room and ran to find his friends. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were sitting forlornly in a corner of the common room.
"Where have you two been? I tried to find you in Hogsmeade during the attack and you were both gone! Goyle, are you crying?" Draco hissed.
"She's gone, Draco," Crabbe mumbled. Both looked as if they had been through something awful.
"Who?" Draco asked, suddenly unsure whether or not he wanted to know. Goyle couldn't bring himself to say it.
"Mandy," Crabbe said softly. "She was so afraid of the banshees. Their scream made her eardrums explode. She was bleeding from her ears and then…" Even Crabbe couldn't bring himself to finish the story, but Goyle bravely lifted his head to tell Draco the ending.
"No one knew that she had an aneurism. The trauma of her eardrums popping must have made it explode," Goyle said through his tears. "She died in my arms."
"Mandy Brockelhurst was a Ravenclaw," Draco said in confusion.
"She was my girlfriend, Draco, and if you thought of someone other than yourself you would have known that," Goyle growled. He and Crabbe stood and left the common room, heading up to the dormitories to get out of the noisy repercussions of the afternoon.
Draco stood mystified and watched his friends go. He hadn't stopped them, he hadn't yelled at them, he hadn't done anything. He couldn't. He could only watch them go and wonder what he was doing wrong. He decided he needed to talk to his father. Draco headed for the owlry, a short note in his hand, and sent it off. He hoped his father would get the note soon. He needed to know what this attack had been about.
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Draco stepped out of the shadows to be visible beneath the street lamp at one corner of Knockturn Alley. He faintly made out the shadow outline of his father coming toward him and stood up a little straighter.
"What is this about, Draco?" Lucius asked coldly.
"I need to know what this is about, Father," Draco answered. "Why did the death eaters attack Hogsmeade today?"
"This is none of your concern," Lucius replied.
"Goyle's girlfriend died today," Draco replied.
"Was she a Slytherin?" Lucius asked.
"It doesn't matter," Draco growled. "What business did they have there today? Professor Snape hasn't returned to the castle and some of the house is getting restless."
"You are never to speak of Professor Snape or his wretched family again. Forget him," Lucius ordered. Draco was taken aback.
"What are you talking about? He's the head of our house," Draco asked. Lucius took his son by the cloak and pulled him into a nearby building. They descended a long staircase and came to a row of dungeon-like cells. Lucius stopped before one of them just as a familiar voice screamed out. Draco flinched as another death eater cast the torture spell on the potions master lying on the cold stone floor of the cell.
"Stop him! What's this about?" Draco shouted. He was as tall as his father now, but the elder Malfoy still wielded much more power.
"He has been a traitor since the day the Dark Lord was defeated. He will pay for betraying Lord Voldemort!" Lucius roared. Severus looked up at Draco with pleading eyes.
Draco heard a much more feminine voice coming from several cells down. She was pleading with someone. The cell, as Draco suspected, contained Professor Capenum, and Crabbe and Goyle's fathers were there with several other fathers that Draco knew. One of them held a baby in his arms. Professor Capenum was straining against her chains and crying, pleading for the death eaters not to harm the baby.
Draco's heart pounded. Should he do something? His father would surely object to him helping these prisoners, but he couldn't help feeling allegiance to his head of house. Professor Snape had never done anything to harm his students, even though he had been emotionally distant at times and had been a strict and exacting teacher. Draco knew that this was Professor Snape's newborn son.
The death eater that held the baby looked coldly at Professor Capenum.
"Where is it?" he demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Merewen cried.
"Liar! The Heart is known to all of your kind!" the death eater shouted. The baby screamed in fear and Merewen panicked.
"That was a rumor! A legend made up to go with the story of Harry Potter!" Merewen cried. Another death eater stepped forward and backhanded Merewen across the face.
"Never mention that name again," the death eater warned. Merewen wept harder.
"The Heart, Professor," the first death eater said coldly. The Heart was a thing of great power. It was said that the only way Harry Potter could defeat Voldemort was with the help of his mother's heart. Many supposed that there was really such an object, and others resigned it to legend. If the death eaters possessed the Heart of Lily Potter, they felt that they would finally have the power to defeat Harry and ensure Lord Voldemort's reign. When Merewen once again pleaded that she didn't know anything about it, the first death eater gently placed his finger beneath the baby's chin and smiled as he lightly tickled it.
"Surely, the great and powerful Severus Snape must have place protective wards upon his wife and child," said the death eater. "Shall we test it?"
Then, as suddenly as the snap of a finger, the death eater flicked his hand upward and there was a sickening crack. The baby was quiet. In a deafeningly silent fraction of a second, Merewen's heart stopped all together. Then she screamed.
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In the first dungeon cell, Severus heard his wife scream and looked desperately to the death eater before him.
"They're killing her, Severus," the death eater lied. "You can save her if you hurry. Tell us where the heart is and I can order them to stop." Severus was at battle in his mind. The secret he possessed was one of utmost importance to the wizarding world, but his family was in mortal danger and he had to do something. He did the only thing that he possibly could. He looked the death eater square in the eye and said the words that they feared the most:
"You're…too…late," Severus growled. "He already has it."
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Draco pushed into Merewen's cell seconds after the death eater turned around.
"How could you!" Draco screamed. "How could you kill an innocent child!"
The death eaters pushed Draco out of the way as they laid the bundle on the bench on the opposite side of the cell. Draco ran from the cell and down the hall, despite his father calling for him to stop. He heard a curious noise coming from yet another cell and stopped. What he found there stole his breath. He gathered this treasure beneath his cloak and fled the prison, apparating back to the school grounds and then running to the castle, leaving his father stunned in the dark hallway of the prison.
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