Disclaimed
Author's note: Thanks all you people who reviewed.
The Basement
By Marz
Chapter 10: Potion Commotion
I woke up early. More truthfully I never went to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I heard skittering little rat's feet. I felt awful as I rolled out of bed. Everyone else in the dorm was still asleep. I thought of maybe waking up Ron, but decided I'd go on my own.
I got dresses and crept through the common room and out into the hall. It was still dark outside. Filch, the squib janitor of the school, and his evil cat Mrs. Norris, were probably in bed by now. I headed for the trophy case in the east wing, to begin my Black research. I'd seen the trophy case before but I'd never noticed pictures of my father, and I was sure I hadn't seen Black.
I'd just turned the corner when I saw him. Professor Lupin stood in front of the display case, his forehead resting against the glass. I slipped behind a less well tended trophy case and watched him though the dirty glass. He was making a weird face, as if he couldn't decide if he had a stomach cramp or not.
He stepped back suddenly and kicked the base of case hard enough to crack the wood. He hopped around on one foot, rubbing his toes, and mumbling and cursing almost inaudibly.
"God damn you Black. Why couldn't you stay gone?"
With one last profanity he stalked away, limping slightly. Someone else to add to my interview list.
When he was completely out of sight I went to the case. It was easy to pick out the picture he'd been looking at. He'd left a forehead print on the glass right above it. I saw my father in the picture right away. He looked just like me. He and a taller boy were laughing and holding a short, brown haired girl on their shoulders. The girl was grinning fit to burst, holding the Quidditch cup above her head. All wore Gryffindor robes.
It took me a few seconds to figure out that the boy next to my father was Sirius Black. His face wasn't wasted away to skin and bones and his eyes nearly glowed with intensity, rather then peering suspiciously, sunk far within his skull. Wizarding pictures don't make any sound, but they do move. As I watched to picture Black leaned toward my father and mumbled something. My dad laughed, and the girl on their shoulders slapped Black on the back of the head.
A bell rang in the distance, and I started back to Gryffindor tower. I needed my potions book. I had a double session of potions class right after breakfast and a tutoring with Snape that evening. It was not going to be a good day.
"Five points from Gryffindor, Potter."
I looked up at Professor Snape, who was looming over my desk. I didn't know why he was back. He'd just been there five minutes earlier, taking points away for an improperly ground thistle.
"What for?" I said with out thinking. I sucked in my breath then, half hoping I could pull my statement back out of the air. Arguing would just loose my house more points.
Snape's lip twitched. "Did you think your blatant cheating has gone unnoticed?"
"I'm not cheating."
"You look at Granger's potion and notes every few minutes, and yet you are not cheating?"
I guess he thought he was tricking me into a confession or something, but I hadn't been looking at Hermione's work at all. Snape always picks on me for something, and this time I actually was completely innocent of wrong doing. I decided to stand up for myself.
"I wasn't looking at her work." I said. The rest of the class stopped working to stare at us.
"Then what were you doing?"
"I was doing my assignment."
"And what part of the assignment requires you to turn around and look behind you?"
I mentally cursed. I hadn't been looking at Hermione's work, but I had been checking on the door. The problem was the potions classroom didn't have any windows, just one door at the very back of the room. Snape made me sit near the front so he could more easily glare at me from his desk. To keep track of the door, I had to turn all the way around.
I wished I was a girl right then. Not for any gross reasons, or anything like that, but if I was a girl I could have one of those little compact mirror things, with that powdery stuff in it. I could pretend to be checking my hair or something but really be watching the door instead. Of course then Snape would yell at me for preening in his classroom, but then I could start to cry and make him look really bad…
I had been following that odd train of thought for too long. Snape was still glaring at me, and from the odd expression on his face, I had a weird feeling that he some how knew what was going on in my head. I had two unpleasant options then, either I tell him I was looking at the door and make my self look crazy, or I deny everything.
"I wasn't looking behind me."
"You weren't?"
"No."
Snape turned then and glided to his seat at the front of the room. He sank into his chair, and proceeded to stare at me.
He thinks he can catch me at it, but he won't. I went back to preparing my potion, which had boiled over during Snape's little rant. As I pored in the shark's blood, the back wall creaked ominously, like the wood was being pressured out of shape. I almost turned then, but I stopped my self. Hogwarts doors don't disappear, and even if they did, people would notice all the third year Gryffindors and Slytherins were missing. I stirred in the clovers. There was a little scraping sound. I could see it in my head. The door was melting away and the stones in the wall were sliding together to take up the space. I looked up at Snape. He was still watching me. He was staring at me so hard, I doubt he even knew something was wrong with the door. He'd look pretty stupid when he couldn't get out of his own classroom.
He stood up suddenly and swept passed me. I guessed he'd just noticed the door. It was too late though. The door was gone. We were all trapped. No fresh air, and only potions ingredients to eat. The Slytherins would resort to cannibalism, so we'd have to protect Neville Longbottom. He was the chubbiest kid in Gryffindor. The Slytherins would try to eat him first. There was a popping noise at the back of the room. It must be Snape trying to pry apart the stones in the wall. He was probably too busy with that to notice me. I could take a quick peek. The door was still there and Snape was standing in front of it, glaring at me.
"Detention Potter."
The halls were empty except for the quiet whispering of the magical portraits. I hurried up the stairs out of the dungeon. I heard footsteps behind me, just out of synch with my own. I thought Snape was following me, planning to give me another detention for being out after curfew, because he'd kept me in detention too long. I sped up. Two hours of dicing caterpillars was more than enough for me. I turned into the main hall and sprinted for the staircase. The steps sped up as well.
It wasn't Snape, he never bothered to run, that would be too undignified.
I knew who it was then, who it had to be. I whirled, drawing my wand from my sleeve. The hall was empty. My heart deafened me as I tried to pick out footfalls in the echoing corridors. I backed slowly toward the stairs, eyes darting everywhere. I must have imagined it. With the doors and Snape and the paranoia, I must have fried out my brain. I had just convinced myself I was safe when a hand clamped down over my mouth. My wand was snatched away before I could send off half a jinx.
An arm snaked around me, pinning my arms to my sides and lifting me off my feet. I kicked as hard as I could and succeeded in sending my left shoe flying down the hall. He dragged me into the Great Hall. It was empty now, this close to curfew. He grabbed my wrists and pinned me to the wall.
"Calm down," Black hissed in my ear. "It's just me."
He seemed to have missed the point entirely, but I thought it was a bad time to bring it up.
"Why haven't you cast the spell on Peter yet?" He squeezed my wrists as he spoke.
"He's gone."
"Gone where?"
"Scabbers is gone. Crookshanks ate him!"
"What! What's a Crookshank?" I was loosing feeling in my hands.
"My friend's cat. They went to class and when they went back to the dorms the rat was gone and there was blood and cat hair all over the place. Please let go!" His not so neatly trimmed fingernails were digging into skin. He did not seem to hear the last part of my statement.
"What does the cat look like?"
"It's dark orange with stripes on its back. Its huge and its bandy legged and…and…and…"
"I have to talk to it, find out what happened… Is the cat in Gryffindor tower?" His eyes were oddly bright.
"He usually goes out at night. Let go of me!"
Black did and stepped away. For a second he looked offended, then he looked at my wrists. They were starting to turn purple and there were four crescent shaped cuts in each of them from his nails. He looked at the blood on his fingertips.
"I'm sorry…" Black stared down at his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
I think he could've gone on like that for a few hours, but a charging giant broke his chain of thought.
"MURDERER!" Hagrid bellowed, as he knocked the doors of the Great Hall off their hinges. Black seemed too surprised to move. He remained frozen in place until Hagrid backhanded him. The blow lifted Black clear off the ground, and he crashed over the Hufflepuff table, slamming into the wall. Hagrid rushed past me. I saw my left shoe in his over sized hand.
Black rolled to his feet and sprinted to the side door, behind the teacher's table. He closed the door. Hagrid was only a step behind him, and he charged into the door full tilt, but the door didn't budge as he hit it. Instead Hagrid bounced off, and fell to the floor momentarily stunned.
I jogged over to Hagrid, who was getting back to feet. "Are you alright?"
Instead of answering me he picked me up, and went charging toward the hospital wing, bellowing at the top of his lungs that Sirius Black was in the castle. My repeated demands to be allowed to walk on my own went ignored.
Dumbledore met us in the hospital wing. He and Madam Pomfrey spent a few minutes fussing over me, and then they stuffed me in a little private room and locked the door. I could hear hundreds of people running through the halls. There wasn't a clock in my room, but I'm pretty sure at least a couple of hours went by before anyone came back to the hospital. I could hear raised voices through the door, and from their unhappy tone I was fairly certain they hadn't caught Black.
I knelt down and put my ear to the crack under the door.
"The boy is helping him get inside the castle. That is the only explanation, Headmaster. Black must be controlling him."
"I don't believe that is true Severus. I do think Mr. Potter is being less then honest with us though."
Their footsteps came toward me, but stopped as Madam Pomfrey suddenly shrieked.
"You can not bring that thing in here! I don't care if you are the Minister of Magic. Take it outside! Take it out now!"
"Control yourself woman!" shouted an unfamiliar voice. "If the Minister does not believe Hogwarts is secure, it is his right to bring whatever protection he thinks is necessary."
As the man spoke I grew cold.
"Minister," I heard Dumbledore say in a surprisingly furious voice, "I have told you before, Dementors are not allowed with in the school."
As they spoke a shadow blocked out the light coming under the door. The room around me grew foggy and I heard a voice shouting in the distance.
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off-"
I understood then who those screaming people were. My parents. I don't remember their voices but that was my father about to die, I knew it. I felt frozen to death, but instead of crawling away from the door I leaned towards it. A slimy gray hand slid under the door and closed over mine.
That shouldn't have been possible. It would have been hard to fit a pencil under the door, much less a hand, but I didn't think a bucket full of logic would cause it to let go. All the heat in my body seemed to pore out through my hand, and as it left the screaming returned.
"Kill me instead, please not Harry!"
After that I didn't think much at all. Well, until a sudden blow to the cranium brought me back a few of my senses.
I was still kneeling on the floor when the professors finally decided to rescue me. Someone, no doubt dramatically, kicked the door open, knocking me in the head with it. The white fog disappeared to be replaced by a general, over all fuzzyness.
People were putting me on my feet, and asking me if I was all right. Through the open door I saw the Dementor gliding out the main door of the hospital, pursued by a glowing silver penguin, which waddled doggedly after it. There were a few men in dark blue robes standing next to a man I recognized as the Minister of Magic. He wore a bowler hat and pinstriped suit, and was watching the penguin as well. I tried to follow the dementor, I guess I thought it knew where my dad was. In my defense I had just received a blow to the head. Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey caught my arms as I stumbled toward the door.
"Harry where are you going?" the Headmaster asked.
"I've got to help my dad. He found us and mum's going to run, but he's coming and there's no where to go…"
The room tilted and I leaned trying to compensate. I ended up on the floor.
"It's cold here." I said, then it got dark.