Disclaimed
Author's note: Please tell me what you think! Reviews are the breakfast of champions.
The Basement
By Marz
Chapter 17: Hang Together
My glasses lay on the floor four feet below me. I could just barley see them. There was a lantern burning in the corner of the room, but Pettigrew had closed the shutters almost entirely, after he finished hanging us. I guess he was worried some passersby would see it and interfere. I tried to feel hopeful about that, but then again it's hard to feel hopeful when somebody is slowly strangling right next to you.
Ron, Hermione, Snape, and I had all received the same treatment. Our arms were tied behind our backs, and we were hung by our ankles from a beam in the ceiling. Pettigrew used a levitation spell to get us up there, but after we were tied, he let gravity do all the work. Black got some special attention I'm certain he didn't want.
Pettigrew had tied a rope around Black's ankles and ran it over a ceiling beam, as he had with the rest of us, but instead of securing the rope to the beam, he ran it back down, and tied it to Black's wrists, behind his back. Pettigrew tied a second shorter rope around Black's neck, and then tied that one to the beam also. He took out a wand, I think it was Ron's, and tapped Black with it.
"Enervate."
I expected Black to rant and threaten, but he only choked desperately. He thrashed around, swinging back and forth in the air, as the ropes creaked ominously. Pettigrew only stood watching. I couldn't see his face, but I'd bet twenty galleons he was smiling. I didn't know what to do. I'd scream or beg, but I couldn't think of anything to say. I tugged at the ropes binding my hands but they didn't give at all. Fortunately someone kept their head.
"Pull down with your arms!" shrieked Hermione. "Mr. Black, pull the rope around your wrists down!"
Then I saw what Hermione had figured out. Only by pulling as hard as he could on the rope around his wrists, could he pull his feet up, and take his weight off the other rope around his neck. If he transformed into a dog, he wouldn't be able to hold himself up at all. Pettigrew definitely knew what he was doing.
Black understood her. His struggles became more organized. His back arched and he pulled the rope around his wrists down towards his head. His elbows were almost even with his shoulders. His whole body shook with effort, but the rope around his ankles grew taught, and he took a great wheezing gasp of air. I can only imagine how hard that must have been, physically. To do a reverse, backwards, upside down, pull up, while all the blood is rushing to your head, seemed impossible to me. However he managed to do it, I knew he would never be able to keep it up. I supposed it wasn't important. I didn't expect Pettigrew to let us live very long anyway.
"Not that this isn't entirely entertaining," Snape said, "But you will be explaining this idiocy sometime soon?"
Snape spoke in a completely calm, even, and slightly bored voice, as if he was quite frequently stunned, tied up, and suspended from the ceiling. Maybe he was, but I don't want to think about his personal life.
"Shut up!" ordered Pettigrew, in a cracking voice. "You'll talk when I tell you to talk."
"That is entirely unlikely," Snape said coolly.
Pettigrew stormed up to him, but as he was short and not terrible heavy, his storming was less then impressive.
"You think I'm afraid of you?" Pettigrew challenge.
"I don't think you're intelligent enough to be properly afraid of me, Pettigrew. What you may wish to think over is this; I am a professor at Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall knows that I was going to investigate this building, as we had reason to believe Black was hiding here. I left instructions to send Aurors, if I did not return with in the hour. Do you have a watch on you Pettigrew?"
"You didn't tell anyone you were coming," Pettigrew answered more confidently. "You wanted to catch Black yourself."
Snape only hung, in smug silence.
"You can't fool me, Snape. I've been watching you."
"Have you?"
"Tell me where he is and I'll let you live." Pettigrew said in a low voice. I don't know why he bothered. We were hung so close together all of us heard what he said.
"Where who is?" Snape asked, sounding completely uninterested.
"Where is the Dark Lord? How do I find him?"
Snape laughed. It was almost as if the sound coming out of his mouth was making the room colder. And the even in the dark I could see his expression didn't change. He stopped suddenly, but the echoes bounced around the room as he addressed Pettigrew's question. "His body was destroyed. He's nowhere and everywhere Pettigrew."
"You're lying! You know something. You knew he was with Quirrell two years ago, and you know where he is now. Tell me!"
"And how am I supposed to know such things? I'm but a humble school teacher."
"Stop playing games!" Pettigrew squeaked angrily. He pushed Snape's left shoulder and spun him around. He grabbed Snape's bound arms and tore open his sleeve. He looked disappointedly at Snape's right forearm.
"Oh right, his left…" Pettigrew mumbled, tearing off the sleeve on Snape's left arm. He made a funny little huffing noise that seemed to be an "I thought so." As he turned Snape back around, I got a look at his left arm. He had a faint red tattoo of skull with a snake in its mouth.
As he was turned Black saw the tattoo as well, and went into a convulsion of cursing so loud they must have heard him in Paris. To my surprise the vocal barrage was directed at Snape instead of Pettigrew. For a moment Black lost his hold on the rope, and he started strangling again. He slowly and painfully pulled himself back up, but he did not stop shouting.
"YOU #$@^ING TRAITOROUS @#%@&! YOU WERE WORKING FOR HIM ALL ALONG! YOU KNEW HE WAS A %$#&ING DEATH EATER! YOU @#%@% %^&#*&! %($#@^%&&*$#! &%%^%%&$$ YOUR MOTHER! GOD DAMN YOU! YOU FILTHY…"
Half of the words coming out of Black's mouth I didn't even understand. I wasn't sure if it was his being half strangled, or his cosmopolitan knowledge of profanity. I hoped I wasn't that sheltered.
"Silencio," said Pettigrew and Black's voice disappeared, but his mouth still moved in an endless string of curses.
"This is your last chance Snape. Where is the Dark Lord?"
"Beyond your reach, fool." Snape said simply.
Pettigrew waved the wand and a hood appeared over Snape's head. With a frustrated noise Pettigrew pushed him and sent him spinning like a crazed top. I wondered if Snape would throw up inside the hood. That would be very unpleasant. Even through the hood I heard his next statement very clearly.
"One thousand points from Gryffindor."
Pettigrew ignored him and walked up to me. He stared at me for a bit. I was really hopping he wasn't going to say something like "You look just like James." But I doubted anything like that would have occurred to him. Being hung upside down had caused my face to swell up, and I was fairly certain I looked more like Dudley Dursley then I did my father.
"I don't have anything against you personally Harry," Pettigrew started off in an attempt at a calm voice. "I didn't want you involved in all this. Black shouldn't have dragged you in. Tell me who else knows about me. Tell me the names of all the people you told and I'll let you and Ron and Hermione go."
"I tell you and we walk away? Somehow I don't believe you."
"I'm not a bad person. I'm just in a bad situation. I don't want to have to hurt anyone. If you tell me I'll just erase your memories and let you go back to the school. It will be like it never happened." Pettigrew's voice strained as he tried to sound honest.
"And what happens to Black?"
"He shouldn't have come after me."
"You expect me to just walk off and let you murder him?"
"Sirius Black or you and your friends. The decision shouldn't be that hard."
"You're going to kill us all anyway."
"This is your last chance Harry. You're bringing this on yourself." I noticed quite clearly that he hadn't denied my last statement.
"Last chance?" I asked, playing dumb.
"Who knows about me?" Pettigrew's voice was clearly showing anger then. He seemed rattled. I thought maybe if I pushed him enough he'd make a mistake, or let something slip that I could use. Maybe he'd just yell at me. The longer he talked, the more chance we had of being rescued.
"I told Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic and the Queen of England." I said smugly.
"Crucio!" Pettigrew bellowed.
I have a hard time describing what that curse did to me. It felt as if my bones had turned to molten lava and were trying to flow out through my skin. When I was four I put a paper clip into the electrical outlet in the Dursley's kitchen. That was picnic compared to this. I wasn't aware of what was going on around me until it stopped. I hung there, soaked in sweat. I heard people sobbing. I recognized Hermione's voice. Someone else was sobbing too, but I didn't think Ron would cry. As I tried to catch my breath I realized I was making most of that noise. My throat hurt. I guess I had been screaming as well. Pettigrew pointed the wand at me, and I flinched.
"Who did you tell?"
My eyes darted to the people around me. Black had slipped again and was fighting to regain his hold on the rope. Hermione looked at me with wide, tear filled eyes. Ron's face was red and he was cursing almost as loudly as Black had been earlier, but with far more repeats. His mother would wash out his mouth. Snape still had a hood covering his face, but for some reason I was sure his attention was on me. Pettigrew held the wand an inch away from my forehead.
I hadn't told anyone. No one was coming. No one would save me. This was going to be bad. What should I say? What was it going to gain me? I couldn't move. I couldn't save them. What was the point? What should I do?
Give him hell, said the little voice.
I guess that was the only answer I would get. I swallowed and cleared my throat.
"I made an announcement on the B.B.C. and I took out an ad in the Daly Prophet," I said.
"Crucio!"
I was hopping it would hurt less the second time, like getting used to hot water, but the opposite seemed true. It was so much worse I prayed I would die. I wished my heart would just explode and put a stop to it. I felt as if I were made of glass that was cracking apart. I knew I was screaming.
When he let up again I wasn't sure where I was. There were voices floating in my head.
"No more please! You'll kill him! Please I'll do anything you want, just stop!"
"YOU BASTARD, I'LL KILL YOU! IF YOU DO THAT AGAIN, I'LL TEAR OFF YOU FACE WITH MY BARE HANDS!"
Ron and Hermione, they were yelling. They were trying to help. I struggled to concentrate.
"I…I…," I took a gulp of air. Pettigrew looked at me expectantly.
"I…put up…Billboards…from here to Manchester."
Pettigrew raised his wand.
"Cru…"
"PING! PING! PING!"
The tiny sound cut him off. His forehead wrinkled as if he were thinking very hard. Then he smiled. He raised his stolen wand above his head and called out an incantation that I have no delusions of being able to repeat. A strange noise echoed through the room. It sounded as if someone had struck a monstrous gong a great distance away. Pettigrew walked to the door, but stopped and looked back at us all before leaving.
"I'll be back to untie you later. I doubt you'll recognize me."
With that he was gone.
"What…was that…'ping' sound?" I asked. I was still struggling to breathe.
"I think it's some kind of alarm he set up in the tunnel," Ron said. "It went off right after he tied us up, and then he went down the tunnel and came back with you. Someone's coming to help us!"
"But they'll just run into Pettigrew and be caught as well," Hermione said. "What was that spell he cast?"
"Dementors," Snape said. His voice was muffled by the hood, and I thought he sounded a bit shaky as he spoke. "It was a summons. All the Dementors in the area will be headed this way."
I looked to Black for conformation, and his defeated expression gave it. He was mouthing something but I couldn't understand what. He shook his head, and then closed his eyes.
"POP!"
"NOOOOO!" I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Black was replaced by a huge black dog. The ropes creaked. The dog kicked and flailed wildly, and the ropes slid from its paws. The dog swung sickeningly in mid air and there was a loud snapping sound as all of the animals considerable weight was put on the rope around its neck. Its legs twitched weakly.
There was another pop, and Black was a man again, but his toes were still a few inches above the floor. His hands went to the rope around his neck, which had tightened as the dog's weight had shifted around. His eyes bugged out of his head and he clawed at the knots in the rope, but his movements were jerky and uncoordinated.
"Oh God, Oh God, Oh God," Hermione chanted.
"What's going on?" called Snape.
None of us bothered to answer him. Black's feet kicked wildly. His fingers went from clawing at the knots to desperately pull at the rope around his neck, but it was no help. He wasn't going to make it.
I looked around, but there was nothing in the dimly lit room that could help. I looked up at my feet. The knot around my ankles, there was something about it. It seemed almost to glow. I knew if I could get to it I could get loose. It was a simple knot. I could figure it out. I had to get to it.
My calves twinged painfully and the muscles in my stomach felt as if they were about to tear free of my skeleton. My back hurt and my lungs burned, but with agonizing slowness I sat up. It wasn't as bad as that curse. All I could hear was my own strained breathing. I could feel the others watching me. With a gasp that was half way to a sob I forced my spine to bend the last few inches. My chin came just past my knees. The rope connecting my ankles to the beam was only a foot farther.
You know you can do this, the little voice said. Feel pain later, there's only a little bit more.
I took another sobbing gasp of air, and bent my knees out to the sides. It stopped some of the pain in my back, but now the muscles in my thighs and calves were going insane, and I was certain I was about to get the worlds largest charley-horse. But every aching second, the rope got closer. Sweat and tears were streaming down my face in equal quantities when I finally got my face even with my ankles, and sunk my teeth into the knot.
Just as I had thought, it was a simple knot. I don't know how I did it after that. My neck ached from the fall in Honeydukes and my jaw felt as if it were stuck full of pins every time I grabbed the knot with my teeth, and every muscle in my body still shook from the curse. Somehow I tugged it loose. Then I fell.
It was a long drop, but I almost managed to get my feet under me before I landed. I got the wind knocked out of me, but I didn't knock myself unconscious. The room was so cold. As I rolled over on my stomach and wheezed I heard a strange rattling noise. I looked towards the boarded-up window and saw long thin fingers slide under the edge. The dementors had arrived.
It felt as if I had pulled every single muscle in my body as I sat up. The next time I fold myself in half, I've got to remember to stretch first. I pulled my bound wrists under my legs and with another painful series of contortions, I got them over my feet, and around in front of me. The knots were more complicated. I didn't think I could get them loose with just my teeth. I stumbled to my feet and went to Black.
His struggles had reduced to a weak twitching. I could barely reach the rope around his neck. I tried to untie the knots, but there was too much weight on them, and the rope around my own wrists had significantly reduced my dexterity. It was no good. I looked down at Blacks twitching feet, and inspiration struck me upside the head.
Just call me Harry Potter, the heroic human foot stool. It has a better ring to it then the boy-who-lived. I got down on my hands and knees. I elbowed him in the shins and Black caught on right away. He stepped onto my back. Despite being skeletally thin he was surprisingly heavy. No longer strangling, he could untie himself. It still took him forever. When he finally got loose, he fell backwards onto the floor and lay there gasping.
I wanted nothing more then to pass out. It was cold and everything hurt and I was tired, but then Ron cleared his throat.
"Little help?" he asked.
Black got up and pulled me to my feet. I was shaking badly and I couldn't stand up all the way. I shuffled over to Ron in a very like Igor fashion, and started untying his arms, while Black, who could actually reach that high, untied his feet. The window rattled ominously as Black lowered Ron to the floor. More dementors were pulling at the boards on the window. Wormlike fingers wiggled through every conceivable space. There must have been twenty of them at that window alone.
Black freed Hermione on his own, while Ron got the ropes off my wrists. Black set Hermione on the floor.
"Let's go," he said.
"We have to get Snape." As I said that one of the boards came loose, and arms snaked through.
"He's not worth it," Black said simply, pushing us toward the door.
"We can't just leave him!" Hermione said. She was still crying.
"He's a Death Eater," Ron said, he seemed to be siding with Black.
My head was starting to get foggy, and I was having trouble understanding what they were getting at. A Death Eater, it sounded like a description for stupid people who eat the toadstools they find in their back yards. That's probably not what he meant though. They were missing the point anyway.
"We can't leave him," I said.
"There's no time Harry," Black said. He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. I kicked him in the shin, and pulled away.
"Fine, you run off. I'll untie him my self." I shuffled back over to Snape. I stretched but couldn't reach the rope around his ankles. Another board gave way. It fell to the floor with a resounding thump. One dementor probably could have gotten through the space, but none of them pulled their arms out of the way. I guess there weren't enough souls to go around.
"Damn it!" Black cursed. He grabbed me around the waist and tried to carry me away, but I grabbed onto Snape's arm. The tug of war that ensued was brief, but stupid. My arms gave out pretty quick, and Snape swung out of my grasp. As I let go Black stumbled and over balanced, and as he was steadying himself, Snape swung back like an evil piñata, and knocked Black sprawling. I was dropped on the floor.
Ron and Hermione pulled me to my feet. I gave Ron a pleading look. He made a frustrated noise and started untying Snape's ankles. Black also made a frustrated noise and came over to help. Just as we got him down, another board popped free. We ran for the door.
Hermione led Snape along, untying his hands as we went. Black led us down a staircase. I didn't feel any warmer as we went. We got to the ground floor and rushed to the tunnel that led back to Hogwarts. Pettigrew was probably in there, but I don't think anyone would argue that he was the lesser of two evils. I looked back and saw shadowy figures gliding through the hall towards us. It was so cold. I couldn't remember what I was doing. It was foggy again. Hands grabbed my arm and dragged me underground.