Thank you to Ms. Padfoot, Corgi, Madame Moony, Barbara, Anora, athenakitty,
Layce74, Gwendellen Snape, Illusia2, Sarah, Jay, Immortalis_Vespers, sameda
and Starlina for reviewing chapter 3, I loved all your comments!
I'm really sorry about taking so long to update. With updating my other story, I don't have nearly enough time to focus on this one as much as I would like, and I don't want to rush any of the chapters out, but I have worked out a rough plan of this story. It should be around 12 chapters long. If I haven't finished it before 'A Different Life' is finished then I'll be putting all my energies into this fic. I also have another one lined up, I've written five chapters for it but I won't post that one until this is finished. And believe it or not, Harry isn't a five year old in that! Well, on with the story!
Hold On
Chapter 4 - Fights and Green Smoke
Severus was reading while sitting in front of the fire, trying to read a line that he had gone over at least ten times without once taking it in. It frustrated him to no end. They had gotten back from the funeral two hours ago and he went straight to the tactic of trying to distract himself by reading, except that wasn't working.
He looked around and saw Remus and Sirius talking in hushed whispers, talking about the funeral no doubt. And Harry was staring at a wall in his room. They all knew that this would be hard for him so they left him alone.
Severus realised that he had gotten distracted again and he focused back down at the words in the book, again not understanding them. Finally he gave up and slammed the book shut in anger.
"Am I disrupting anything?" A voice from the fire said.
Severus jumped before realising that it was just Dumbledore, so he settled for glaring at the man instead.
"Albus, come in."
Dumbledore's head disappeared for a moment before his whole body appeared and he stepped out of the fire.
Sirius and Remus came into the room, hearing the commotion.
"Good evening all, where is Harry?"
"He's in his room, I'll go get him." Remus said as he quickly left to go into Harry's room. He returned moments later with Harry behind him.
"Hello Harry, how are you?"
Harry looked around at everyone who all had their eyes on him and just shrugged.
"Perhaps this will be better discussed sitting down." Dumbledore took a seat that appeared out of nowhere and waited patiently as Sirius, Remus, Harry and Severus slowly found a seat and sat down also.
"Now Harry, could you tell us what happened yesterday when you and Severus were in the Leaky Cauldron?" Dumbledore asked politely.
Harry looked away and shrugged his shoulders.
"For Merlin's sake Potter, why not use that big mouth of yours and talk!" Severus snapped before he could stop himself.
Sirius lunged at Severus. "How dare you speak to him like that!" Severus felt a hand connect harshly with his jaw before he could even duck from the blow.
Severus felt pain shoot up from his whole face, and could distantly hear Dumbledore and Remus yelling at them to stop. But Severus didn't listen. Being stuck in a house with Sirius and having to bite his tongue from making comments at him more times then he would have liked had made him repress a lot of anger.
Severus brought his hand back and punched Sirius right back in the stomach, feeling pleasure at the sight of him wincing in pain. But he got distracted and missed the kick that Sirius directed at his knee. At the contact Severus fell to the ground.
Severus swiped his leg along the ground and tripped Sirius over, seeing him fall harshly on his back, but before he could pull out his wand as he was just about to do, someone put their arms around his middle, trapping his arms from moving and he struggled to get loose. He didn't notice that Sirius was having the exact same thing happen to him, with Remus holding him back.
"Severus, stop it now." Dumbledore said forcefully.
Severus slowly stopped struggling and started to calm down. The red hot anger he felt started to die down and he felt himself breathing in heavily. He could taste blood in his mouth and he had an awful headache.
"Are you both ready to act like adults now?" Dumbledore asked after a few moments of stillness, a tinge of anger to his voice.
Severus glared at Sirius as he saw Sirius nod. He watched Remus slowly let him go, helping him to his feet, keeping a close distance to him in case Sirius attacked again.
"Severus?"
"Yes." Severus hissed angrily back and he shook the old man off, standing to his feet on his own, ignoring the head rush he got as he did.
"Are you alright Severus? Perhaps you should go clean up a bit and-" Dumbledore started to say, but was unsurprisingly cut off.
"I'm fine." Severus said shortly. He was not going to give Sirius the satisfaction of having to leave to go heal himself.
Severus stalked back over to his chair and sat down with as much dignity as he could. He could see Harry staring at them all with wide eyes.
Dumbledore too sat down. "Now Harry, how did you know Cornelius had the Dark Mark. Yesterday you said it was a feeling?"
Harry nodded.
"Do you get these feelings often?"
Harry's gaze unfocused as he thought, finally he shook his head.
"Okay Harry, what was the feeling you got around him then?"
"A bad feeling." Harry replied shortly, looking nervously at Severus, as if seeing if he would comment on him talking.
"When was the last time you had this bad feeling?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
Harry shrugged.
"Do you have any strong feelings now like what you had before?"
Harry looked at Dumbledore closely, and then after a moment he looked at Sirius, and then he moved on to Remus, and finally to Severus.
While Harry was still looking at Severus he nodded.
"Do you get a feeling from Severus?"
"He has the mark as well, but it's different." Harry scrunched his nose in thought and Severus glared at him, making Harry look away.
"Different how?"
Harry shrugged and looked at the ground.
"Okay Harry, you can go now." Dumbledore said, he barely had all the words out before Harry had jumped out of his seat and headed quickly down the hall, presumedly to his room.
"How has he been?" Dumbledore now directed his question to the men in the room.
After no one said anything, Remus spoke up. "He never smiles-"
"What does he have to smile about? His parents just died-"
"Sirius." Dumbledore warned. Sirius sighed and looked at Remus. "Sorry."
Remus nodded at him but made no move to comment any further on Dumbledore's question.
"Severus, what do you think?"
"He's fine Albus, just fine." Severus said, not really believing what he was saying.
***
It was late, and Severus felt like his body was already asleep, but his mind was too awake to give him the luxury of sleeping. He could hear the faint noises coming from the small hallway, signalling that someone was soundly sleeping. Harry had been put to bed hours ago. And Sirius and Remus had left a couple of hours ago. Now there was only Severus awake.
He let his eyes wonder over to the window. It was completely black outside. There was a slight pink haze that could be seen, though you would have to look hard to see it. And any wizard would just recognise it as a protection charm. A lot of wizards had it surrounding their homes. Just the added protection to feel safe. Not that it stopped intruders from entering. The flaw with the charm was that it was not un-breakable. Loop holes surrounded it and although it would take a gifted wizard to break through, it was still possible. Though newer versions of the charm had lead to warnings being given when it was being broken down.
Severus shook his head and quickly pulled himself away from his thoughts before they could take him to a place he didn't want to be. A place he hoped never to have to re-visit, whether it be in real life or in his thoughts, dreams.
He stood up and stretched, wincing as his back cracked from being cooped up in the chair for hours upon end. He placed the book back where he found it, in the bookshelf that Sirius had. Severus had been surprised to actually find a book that was of interest to him. Though unsurprisingly there were large amounts of Quidditch books to be seen.
Severus took one more look at the window, to see the sun was starting to make its way up and he headed back to bed, putting the fire out of the fireplace as he went. He was surprised that Sirius, an Auror could be so foolish when it came to his own safety. Being an Auror, he had a floo line open to all and any. He never knew where someone of importance could be flooing from. But Severus wasn't quite welcome to the idea of having such an easy way of entering a place open for anyone. It sort of made the protection charms they had around the house pointless. Luckily once the fire was out, no one could enter through it.
His thoughts had continued until he had reached his room. He didn't bother to get changed, but instead just fell onto the bed and stayed above the covers. He slowly started to drift off to sleep.
***
Exactly one hour after Severus had collapsed into bed, he was grudgingly awoken by smoke. When he thought registered in his head he sat up straight, not caring that his muscles were protesting against the action.
He sniffed the green smoke that looked like it was unnaturally coming straight for him and tried to decipher what it was. If it were lethal, he would surely be feeling some form of affect by now, but it seemed harmless. In fact, it was odourless. Perhaps it was some form of prank that Sirius and Remus were pulling. But then he wasn't able to see a point. They would have a least made this smell wouldn't they?
Severus stood up and roughly put his shoes on, the one thing he had bothered to take off before he had fallen onto his bed.
He stepped outside of the door and looking down the hallway, he saw Sirius and Remus standing by their doors. Both looking like they had just awoken and looking confused by what was happening. The same green smoke surrounded them and a trail of it could be seen going to Harry's room as well.
Before Severus could say anything Sirius' eyes widened and he pulled out his wand. Predictably he had it on him at all times, even when he slept. Severus found he did the same thing.
"Black, what are you-"
"Shhh!" Sirius cut him off and he cautiously walked over to a window close by, peering out of it.
Severus bit his lip from snapping at him. He was not in any mood to start a fight. So he crossed his arms and glared at Sirius, waiting for him to say something that made sense of what he was doing.
After a few quick moments of peering out the window, he turned around and spoke to Remus.
"Moony, do you smell anything strange? Sense anything different?"
Remus looked at Sirius in confusion. "I can't smell anything at all with the smoke, it's-"
"Not the smoke Moony, out there." Sirius pointed out the window.
"Black, what in Merlin's name are you talking about?" Severus snapped.
"The green smoke is my own device, it tells me when my shields are being tampered with. It is supposed to set off a signal to the Ministry, and also wake me up. I didn't realise at first because I set the wards years ago, and when- when we were guarding Pettigrew I rarely came here."
"So someone is trying to break in?" Remus asked, unconsciously taking out his wand and sniffing the air for unfamiliar humans that were in his range.
"Perhaps, or just someone mucking around outside. If one was trying to break in, a fireplace would be the way to go. I don't recall putting it out last night."
"I did. We should never leave it on without someone around to make sure that whoever is coming in, is not someone that is unwanted, especially with Harry here." Severus spoke harshly, taking out his wand as he spoke and taking a look at Harry's door that was still closed.
Sirius winced at Severus words, looking too at Harry's door.
"It's getting fainter, is that a good sign?" Remus asked.
Sirius focused back to Remus and he looked even more pale, though it could have just been the way the small flicker of light from the sun hit his face from the window.
"They must be getting closer, when the wards are completely gone, then the smoke will be gone as well."
"What should we do?" Remus asked, looking around for all possible exits.
"Did you say that Ministry would be informed?" Severus asked.
Sirius nodded. "But there is no way of knowing how long it would take to get here, It could be a few hours before they are able to decipher the message, and that's if it will even work. I never tested it out."
"Then we somehow get a message to Dumbledore, and in the meantime fight them." Severus replied, ignoring the comment that wanted to surface about Sirius' stupidity.
"No, this might only be nothing. But in the possibility that it isn't, we should get Harry out of here." Remus spoke calmly, and once finished he and Sirius both looked at Severus expectantly.
"You don't expect me to just leave?" Severus sounded outraged and his glare only helped to tell them that he was.
"We are both trained Aurors Snape, you are not." Sirius said without flinching once at Severus death glare.
"All the more reason that one of you should be with the boy. You could protect him better."
Sirius seemed to consider what Severus had said, though Severus had no doubt that it was more for the fact that Sirius didn't want to leave Harry in his hands.
Before anyone could say another word, a face appeared by the window, and they were wearing a Death Eater mask.
Severus was two seconds away from cursing the man when Sirius stood in his way.
"Move Black, what are-"
"He can't see you. There is a spell on the window; all he can see is black."
Severus narrowed his eyes at Sirius, and then looked behind him to the Death Eater who was still trying to see in through the window.
"Sirius, the green smoke is fading fast." Remus hissed urgently.
"I'm not leaving." Severus said defiantly, not willing to take no for an answer.
Sirius looked back over to Harry's still closed door, his previous thoughts returning.
"No Sirius." Remus broke Sirius' train of thought, knowing what he was thinking. "They can't see Severus here; they don't know he is here now, revealing that will expose him."
"I can fight. You can't expect me to just run away like a scared child."
Banging noises could be heard throughout the house.
"For Merlin's sake Snape, get Harry and go. If you stay here, you will be seen. And Dumbledore may still need you to spy in the future. Now Go!"
Footsteps in the house could be heard now.
"They're in." Remus realised.
Sirius shut the door heading to the hallway and started to mutter spells and enchantments on it. "Moony, take over." Sirius broke off and walked over to Severus.
"Black, I won't-"
"Shut up and listen. Continue down this hall, and the last portrait on your left is a secret exit. Say 'Marauder' and then say it again to close it. Keep going until you reach the end of the tunnel, then you will be in a forest. You can Apparate from there." Sirius was speaking quickly; trying to buy time by sealing the door would only work for a short time.
Severus took one look at Sirius, and then at Remus before nodding once and running over to Harry's door. He flung it open and ran over to Harry, who was still asleep.
He bent down and picked him up. He grabbed a coat that was laying on the ground on the way out and then ran back out of the room. Both Sirius and Remus were busy trying to keep the door shut.
He sprinted down to the end of the hallway and followed the directions Sirius had given him, quickly finding the last portrait. He muttered the spell, feeling urgency as he heard curses being shouted now. They had obviously gotten past the door.
It quickly opened and Severus ran through, shutting it behind him. And without waiting for even a moment, he ran down the many stairs it had. The bouncing that this was causing awoke Harry, but he didn't say anything. Just watched as he was carried at full speed through a place he had never seen before.
Severus was thankful when the stairs levelled off and they were on flat ground. They were obviously far underground, but that didn't make Severus feel any better. He needed to get Harry as far away from those Death Eaters as he could.
I'm really sorry about taking so long to update. With updating my other story, I don't have nearly enough time to focus on this one as much as I would like, and I don't want to rush any of the chapters out, but I have worked out a rough plan of this story. It should be around 12 chapters long. If I haven't finished it before 'A Different Life' is finished then I'll be putting all my energies into this fic. I also have another one lined up, I've written five chapters for it but I won't post that one until this is finished. And believe it or not, Harry isn't a five year old in that! Well, on with the story!
Hold On
Chapter 4 - Fights and Green Smoke
Severus was reading while sitting in front of the fire, trying to read a line that he had gone over at least ten times without once taking it in. It frustrated him to no end. They had gotten back from the funeral two hours ago and he went straight to the tactic of trying to distract himself by reading, except that wasn't working.
He looked around and saw Remus and Sirius talking in hushed whispers, talking about the funeral no doubt. And Harry was staring at a wall in his room. They all knew that this would be hard for him so they left him alone.
Severus realised that he had gotten distracted again and he focused back down at the words in the book, again not understanding them. Finally he gave up and slammed the book shut in anger.
"Am I disrupting anything?" A voice from the fire said.
Severus jumped before realising that it was just Dumbledore, so he settled for glaring at the man instead.
"Albus, come in."
Dumbledore's head disappeared for a moment before his whole body appeared and he stepped out of the fire.
Sirius and Remus came into the room, hearing the commotion.
"Good evening all, where is Harry?"
"He's in his room, I'll go get him." Remus said as he quickly left to go into Harry's room. He returned moments later with Harry behind him.
"Hello Harry, how are you?"
Harry looked around at everyone who all had their eyes on him and just shrugged.
"Perhaps this will be better discussed sitting down." Dumbledore took a seat that appeared out of nowhere and waited patiently as Sirius, Remus, Harry and Severus slowly found a seat and sat down also.
"Now Harry, could you tell us what happened yesterday when you and Severus were in the Leaky Cauldron?" Dumbledore asked politely.
Harry looked away and shrugged his shoulders.
"For Merlin's sake Potter, why not use that big mouth of yours and talk!" Severus snapped before he could stop himself.
Sirius lunged at Severus. "How dare you speak to him like that!" Severus felt a hand connect harshly with his jaw before he could even duck from the blow.
Severus felt pain shoot up from his whole face, and could distantly hear Dumbledore and Remus yelling at them to stop. But Severus didn't listen. Being stuck in a house with Sirius and having to bite his tongue from making comments at him more times then he would have liked had made him repress a lot of anger.
Severus brought his hand back and punched Sirius right back in the stomach, feeling pleasure at the sight of him wincing in pain. But he got distracted and missed the kick that Sirius directed at his knee. At the contact Severus fell to the ground.
Severus swiped his leg along the ground and tripped Sirius over, seeing him fall harshly on his back, but before he could pull out his wand as he was just about to do, someone put their arms around his middle, trapping his arms from moving and he struggled to get loose. He didn't notice that Sirius was having the exact same thing happen to him, with Remus holding him back.
"Severus, stop it now." Dumbledore said forcefully.
Severus slowly stopped struggling and started to calm down. The red hot anger he felt started to die down and he felt himself breathing in heavily. He could taste blood in his mouth and he had an awful headache.
"Are you both ready to act like adults now?" Dumbledore asked after a few moments of stillness, a tinge of anger to his voice.
Severus glared at Sirius as he saw Sirius nod. He watched Remus slowly let him go, helping him to his feet, keeping a close distance to him in case Sirius attacked again.
"Severus?"
"Yes." Severus hissed angrily back and he shook the old man off, standing to his feet on his own, ignoring the head rush he got as he did.
"Are you alright Severus? Perhaps you should go clean up a bit and-" Dumbledore started to say, but was unsurprisingly cut off.
"I'm fine." Severus said shortly. He was not going to give Sirius the satisfaction of having to leave to go heal himself.
Severus stalked back over to his chair and sat down with as much dignity as he could. He could see Harry staring at them all with wide eyes.
Dumbledore too sat down. "Now Harry, how did you know Cornelius had the Dark Mark. Yesterday you said it was a feeling?"
Harry nodded.
"Do you get these feelings often?"
Harry's gaze unfocused as he thought, finally he shook his head.
"Okay Harry, what was the feeling you got around him then?"
"A bad feeling." Harry replied shortly, looking nervously at Severus, as if seeing if he would comment on him talking.
"When was the last time you had this bad feeling?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
Harry shrugged.
"Do you have any strong feelings now like what you had before?"
Harry looked at Dumbledore closely, and then after a moment he looked at Sirius, and then he moved on to Remus, and finally to Severus.
While Harry was still looking at Severus he nodded.
"Do you get a feeling from Severus?"
"He has the mark as well, but it's different." Harry scrunched his nose in thought and Severus glared at him, making Harry look away.
"Different how?"
Harry shrugged and looked at the ground.
"Okay Harry, you can go now." Dumbledore said, he barely had all the words out before Harry had jumped out of his seat and headed quickly down the hall, presumedly to his room.
"How has he been?" Dumbledore now directed his question to the men in the room.
After no one said anything, Remus spoke up. "He never smiles-"
"What does he have to smile about? His parents just died-"
"Sirius." Dumbledore warned. Sirius sighed and looked at Remus. "Sorry."
Remus nodded at him but made no move to comment any further on Dumbledore's question.
"Severus, what do you think?"
"He's fine Albus, just fine." Severus said, not really believing what he was saying.
***
It was late, and Severus felt like his body was already asleep, but his mind was too awake to give him the luxury of sleeping. He could hear the faint noises coming from the small hallway, signalling that someone was soundly sleeping. Harry had been put to bed hours ago. And Sirius and Remus had left a couple of hours ago. Now there was only Severus awake.
He let his eyes wonder over to the window. It was completely black outside. There was a slight pink haze that could be seen, though you would have to look hard to see it. And any wizard would just recognise it as a protection charm. A lot of wizards had it surrounding their homes. Just the added protection to feel safe. Not that it stopped intruders from entering. The flaw with the charm was that it was not un-breakable. Loop holes surrounded it and although it would take a gifted wizard to break through, it was still possible. Though newer versions of the charm had lead to warnings being given when it was being broken down.
Severus shook his head and quickly pulled himself away from his thoughts before they could take him to a place he didn't want to be. A place he hoped never to have to re-visit, whether it be in real life or in his thoughts, dreams.
He stood up and stretched, wincing as his back cracked from being cooped up in the chair for hours upon end. He placed the book back where he found it, in the bookshelf that Sirius had. Severus had been surprised to actually find a book that was of interest to him. Though unsurprisingly there were large amounts of Quidditch books to be seen.
Severus took one more look at the window, to see the sun was starting to make its way up and he headed back to bed, putting the fire out of the fireplace as he went. He was surprised that Sirius, an Auror could be so foolish when it came to his own safety. Being an Auror, he had a floo line open to all and any. He never knew where someone of importance could be flooing from. But Severus wasn't quite welcome to the idea of having such an easy way of entering a place open for anyone. It sort of made the protection charms they had around the house pointless. Luckily once the fire was out, no one could enter through it.
His thoughts had continued until he had reached his room. He didn't bother to get changed, but instead just fell onto the bed and stayed above the covers. He slowly started to drift off to sleep.
***
Exactly one hour after Severus had collapsed into bed, he was grudgingly awoken by smoke. When he thought registered in his head he sat up straight, not caring that his muscles were protesting against the action.
He sniffed the green smoke that looked like it was unnaturally coming straight for him and tried to decipher what it was. If it were lethal, he would surely be feeling some form of affect by now, but it seemed harmless. In fact, it was odourless. Perhaps it was some form of prank that Sirius and Remus were pulling. But then he wasn't able to see a point. They would have a least made this smell wouldn't they?
Severus stood up and roughly put his shoes on, the one thing he had bothered to take off before he had fallen onto his bed.
He stepped outside of the door and looking down the hallway, he saw Sirius and Remus standing by their doors. Both looking like they had just awoken and looking confused by what was happening. The same green smoke surrounded them and a trail of it could be seen going to Harry's room as well.
Before Severus could say anything Sirius' eyes widened and he pulled out his wand. Predictably he had it on him at all times, even when he slept. Severus found he did the same thing.
"Black, what are you-"
"Shhh!" Sirius cut him off and he cautiously walked over to a window close by, peering out of it.
Severus bit his lip from snapping at him. He was not in any mood to start a fight. So he crossed his arms and glared at Sirius, waiting for him to say something that made sense of what he was doing.
After a few quick moments of peering out the window, he turned around and spoke to Remus.
"Moony, do you smell anything strange? Sense anything different?"
Remus looked at Sirius in confusion. "I can't smell anything at all with the smoke, it's-"
"Not the smoke Moony, out there." Sirius pointed out the window.
"Black, what in Merlin's name are you talking about?" Severus snapped.
"The green smoke is my own device, it tells me when my shields are being tampered with. It is supposed to set off a signal to the Ministry, and also wake me up. I didn't realise at first because I set the wards years ago, and when- when we were guarding Pettigrew I rarely came here."
"So someone is trying to break in?" Remus asked, unconsciously taking out his wand and sniffing the air for unfamiliar humans that were in his range.
"Perhaps, or just someone mucking around outside. If one was trying to break in, a fireplace would be the way to go. I don't recall putting it out last night."
"I did. We should never leave it on without someone around to make sure that whoever is coming in, is not someone that is unwanted, especially with Harry here." Severus spoke harshly, taking out his wand as he spoke and taking a look at Harry's door that was still closed.
Sirius winced at Severus words, looking too at Harry's door.
"It's getting fainter, is that a good sign?" Remus asked.
Sirius focused back to Remus and he looked even more pale, though it could have just been the way the small flicker of light from the sun hit his face from the window.
"They must be getting closer, when the wards are completely gone, then the smoke will be gone as well."
"What should we do?" Remus asked, looking around for all possible exits.
"Did you say that Ministry would be informed?" Severus asked.
Sirius nodded. "But there is no way of knowing how long it would take to get here, It could be a few hours before they are able to decipher the message, and that's if it will even work. I never tested it out."
"Then we somehow get a message to Dumbledore, and in the meantime fight them." Severus replied, ignoring the comment that wanted to surface about Sirius' stupidity.
"No, this might only be nothing. But in the possibility that it isn't, we should get Harry out of here." Remus spoke calmly, and once finished he and Sirius both looked at Severus expectantly.
"You don't expect me to just leave?" Severus sounded outraged and his glare only helped to tell them that he was.
"We are both trained Aurors Snape, you are not." Sirius said without flinching once at Severus death glare.
"All the more reason that one of you should be with the boy. You could protect him better."
Sirius seemed to consider what Severus had said, though Severus had no doubt that it was more for the fact that Sirius didn't want to leave Harry in his hands.
Before anyone could say another word, a face appeared by the window, and they were wearing a Death Eater mask.
Severus was two seconds away from cursing the man when Sirius stood in his way.
"Move Black, what are-"
"He can't see you. There is a spell on the window; all he can see is black."
Severus narrowed his eyes at Sirius, and then looked behind him to the Death Eater who was still trying to see in through the window.
"Sirius, the green smoke is fading fast." Remus hissed urgently.
"I'm not leaving." Severus said defiantly, not willing to take no for an answer.
Sirius looked back over to Harry's still closed door, his previous thoughts returning.
"No Sirius." Remus broke Sirius' train of thought, knowing what he was thinking. "They can't see Severus here; they don't know he is here now, revealing that will expose him."
"I can fight. You can't expect me to just run away like a scared child."
Banging noises could be heard throughout the house.
"For Merlin's sake Snape, get Harry and go. If you stay here, you will be seen. And Dumbledore may still need you to spy in the future. Now Go!"
Footsteps in the house could be heard now.
"They're in." Remus realised.
Sirius shut the door heading to the hallway and started to mutter spells and enchantments on it. "Moony, take over." Sirius broke off and walked over to Severus.
"Black, I won't-"
"Shut up and listen. Continue down this hall, and the last portrait on your left is a secret exit. Say 'Marauder' and then say it again to close it. Keep going until you reach the end of the tunnel, then you will be in a forest. You can Apparate from there." Sirius was speaking quickly; trying to buy time by sealing the door would only work for a short time.
Severus took one look at Sirius, and then at Remus before nodding once and running over to Harry's door. He flung it open and ran over to Harry, who was still asleep.
He bent down and picked him up. He grabbed a coat that was laying on the ground on the way out and then ran back out of the room. Both Sirius and Remus were busy trying to keep the door shut.
He sprinted down to the end of the hallway and followed the directions Sirius had given him, quickly finding the last portrait. He muttered the spell, feeling urgency as he heard curses being shouted now. They had obviously gotten past the door.
It quickly opened and Severus ran through, shutting it behind him. And without waiting for even a moment, he ran down the many stairs it had. The bouncing that this was causing awoke Harry, but he didn't say anything. Just watched as he was carried at full speed through a place he had never seen before.
Severus was thankful when the stairs levelled off and they were on flat ground. They were obviously far underground, but that didn't make Severus feel any better. He needed to get Harry as far away from those Death Eaters as he could.