A/N: Sorry for the long absence, everyone. I caught an extremely nasty virus and lost many of my files and programmes. Yes, I did have backup, but not for each and every programme on my computer (NOW I do!), and getting everything back on line (literally) was a loooooot of work. One half of the stuff I lost I needed for my work, the other half for my nearly finished University thesis, so I just had to give priority to these things.

As you can see I have started writing again and I saw that many of you already sent reviews. I haven't had the time to read any of it yet, wanting to use my little bit of free time for writing, but I will do so right after I posted this chapter.

Thank you so much for your patience and your encouraging words – and also for a couple of well aimed kicks. g

Anyone who sent me an email before April – sorry, guys, I don't have your email addresses anymore, otherwise I would have send you a short note.

Chapter 29: Turning Tide

Dumbledore was staring off into empty space. His lips were moving, yet no sound could be heard. Dried tears had left paths of sorrow on his wrinkled face. Harry couldn't remember a time when the impressive wizard had looked this old and withered.

Behind him Lupin had started to gather up his coat, scarf and gloves. Tonks was following his example, obviously getting ready to leave.

Answering the questioning looks the others threw him Lupin said:

"I'm going to go looking for Severus."

Moody nodded vigorously.

"Good idea, son. He is probably confused enough so that you stand a chance of finding him before he reaches Voldemort or any of his Death Eater friends. Bring him directly to my house, will you."

Lupin regarded the disfigured Auror with a look of loathing.

"I want to check if he is all right", was all he said before walking off briskly, a slightly shaken yet determined Tonks in his wake.

"I can explain."

Dumbledore's voice lacked its usual resonance, yet it drew everybody's attention with ease. Lupin stopped, his right hand on the door handle.

"I need to find Severus."

The door opened, let in the night and the cold. With a swish of Lupin's cloak both he and Tonks were gone. None of them had bothered to close the door again.

Deep down in the Dungeons Severus Snape rested his head against damp tiles. Hot water had been splashing down on him for the last fifteen minutes, burning his pale skin, leaving it red and raw. Tears were still streaming down his face. Slowly he slumped down to the floor and huddled himself into a tight ball. At first he tried to stifle the sobs rising from his throat, from the bottom of his heart. Then he surrendered to the overwhelming feeling of loss and utter despair and cried, cried like he hadn't cried in years.

Molly Weasley handed the headmaster a glass of some amber coloured liquid. Alcohol, without any doubt.

"You said you could explain."

Hermione's voice quivered and somehow fit with her pale face, the large eyes and the trembling lip. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, flanked on either side by Ron and Ginny, both of whom hung their heads and didn't dare to look up at the grown-ups, especially not their parents.

"Explain, then", she demanded.

Harry gave her a grim yet encouraging smile. He had never been more proud of her.

Albus Dumbledore emptied his glass in one move, then stared down at his own hands. His brows were furrowed and he seemed to struggle for the right words.

"Several Death Eaters have escaped from Azkaban prison", he finally started, his voice surprisingly soft and gentle.

"All of them have rejoined their master – all but Lucius Malfoy."

"And you know that, because Professor Snape told you", Harry interrupted angrily. Only when he heard his own words did he realise that he had instinctively granted Snape his title for the first time.

Dumbledore nodded.

"Yes, he told me. He told all of us."

His gaze wandered through the room, rested shortly on the faces of the other members of the Order.

"But we were convinced – I was convinced that he had to know more than he told us. Severus and Lucius, they have been friends since Severus' first year, you saw it. Lucius is the only reason Severus and I ever fought – apart from you, Harry. I was so sure that he knew where his friend was."

The old wizard's voice trailed off and he started to finger one of his rings nervously.

Arthur Weasley laid a hand on Dumbledore's arm.

"We asked him today, Albus. We asked him many times. He told us he didn't know and we believed him."

Behind her husband Molly Weasley nodded, the look on her face an intriguing mix of apologising and accusing. Alastor Moody clonked over to an empty chair and sat down heavily.

"I didn't", he grunted. "Snape would do anything to protect that slimy aristocratic bastard. You saw for yourself. You heard what he said."

He looked at Harry with a sickening certainty, yet it was Hermione who answered.

"Yes, we heard and we saw what he said. We saw it, because the man that we looked up to and thought wise and just beyond all measure broke into another man's soul."

She looked at Moody with eyes that seemed to belong to a far older person.

"And maybe we saw something that you were not able to see."

She kneeled down in front of the headmaster and looked up at him imploringly.

"Please, sir. Why did you do it?"

She needed to know. Harry could sense that her view on the world depended on the answer to that question and he had to admit that he was as tense and eager to hear it.

Dumbledore rested a hand on her thin shoulder and she didn't flinch or draw back, a reaction that seemed to encourage him.

"Because I misjudged him, Miss Granger. Because I felt guilty. Because I knew I had taken some very bad decisions and was sure that he had taken appropriate steps."

He sighed and closed his eyes.

"I have not listened to him so many times, have ignored his advice and listened to my own proud heart rather than his keen mind. I have disappointed him, let him down. It would have been only too understandable, had he decided to take care of himself after I had stopped to care for him."

Finally he looked up, at Arthur and Molly Weasley, at Bill, at Harry.

"He was right, I didn't trust him anymore. And I was so sure to find proof for my suspicions that I didn't even mind performing this spell on him in front of you all. I thought it would simplify matters if I had witnesses straight away."

All the colour had slipped from his face and he ran two shaking hands through his hair. Finally his eyes came to rest on Hermione again.

"I knew there was a traitor in the room, Miss Granger. I just didn't have the courage to admit that it was me."

Deadalus Diggle appeared from the shadows of the eerily quiet room to rest a hand on the headmaster's shaking shoulder, a gesture that earned him a withering look from Harry.

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Professor Dumbledore, sir", he said, an uncertain air clinging to his unusually sober voice.

"We all make mistakes."

"And I am still not sure you made one", exclaimed Moody while banging a fist on the table. Little dust flakes took flight half-heartedly before settling down on the tabletop again, apparently indifferent to the situation around them.

"He is a traitor, after all! He serves two masters and how are we to know which one he will be loyal to in the end?"

Harry could hardly believe his ears. He was just about to give Alastor Moody, famous Auror and war hero, a piece of his young and agitated mind when Bill Weasley interrupted his chaotic thoughts.

"Tonight we all might have made it a lot easier for him to decide where his loyalties lie."

Wind tugged at Severus Snape's cloak and blew his dark hair out of his face. His eyes were red and puffy, yet by now he was past the point of crying. His right hand clutched a bottle of dubious origin which held a pale green liquid while he steadied himself against the stone wall with his left. Slowly he sank down along the wall, the pinnacle in front of him blocking the icy blast at least a little. Snow settled determinedly on his cloak, his hair and his unbuckled boots. He took a large sip from the bottle and didn't even try to ignore the cold.

The Weasleys had tried to send them all up to their rooms, but Harry wouldn't budge and the others had followed his example. They had all settled down around the kitchen table, Ginny fast asleep with her head resting on the table, Hermione between Harry and Ron opposite of Mr and Mrs Weasley. Dumbledore sat alone and forlorn at the head of the table, avoiding everyone's gaze, especially Harry's.

Bill was busy preparing tea for everyone and seemed to be immensely glad to have something to take his mind off what had happened there that night.

"So", Harry spat into the room belligerently "what are we going to do?"

"We?" Mrs Weasley asked. She clearly thought that they had already seen and heard too much and were to be kept out of further developments at all costs. Like that was even possible anymore!

"We will wait until the others have returned from their search and you will go to bed in a couple of minutes and try to catch some sleep."

Her husband let out an exasperated sigh, rolled his eyes at her and then got up, pretending to help Bill with the tea. Harry crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back on his chair as far as possible without forcing the chair's feet to leave the ground.

"What happens when they find him? What happens if they don't find him? Is anyone going to actually do something?"

At that Dumbledore heaved a huge sigh, got up from his chair and drew himself up to his full impressive height. He appeared to grow by the minute as an aura of determination settled around him, relighting the sparkle in his eyes and taking some of the weight off his shoulders. He looked resolved and calm, yet when he spoke there was still a slight tingle of something strange to his voice, guilt mixed with shame and bewilderment.

"There are really not that many places he could go to, even less places he would go to. And I am the only one who knows all of them."

Before anyone could say anything or move to interfere, a very determined Albus Dumbledore had strode out of the kitchen, covered the distance to the front door with a few purposeful steps and disappeared into the darkness outside.

Harry wasn't sure he wanted the headmaster to be the one to find the Potions Master. Absentmindedly he accepted the cup of tea that Ron had shoved towards him. Pictures were racing through his mind, contradicting memories and tales that made his inner world shake and tremble. He took a casual sip of the hot liquid in front of him, hardly noticing that he burnt his tongue.

Severus Snape pressed his hands against his temples and closed his eyes shut. Pictures were threatening to drown him, uninvited visitors from the past, debris from a life that he thought he had buried so deep that he wouldn't even be able to find it if he wanted to. Yet here they were, roaming through his mind and soul, tearing loose other bits and pieces that he had just barely managed to store away.

With a vehemence that surprised even him he pushed himself away from the wall, stood tall and let out a howl that came from the bottom of the pool of mankind's misery. The bottle, by now empty, left his hand and flew in a tight arch down into the yard where it shattered into tiny splinters that were swallowed by the thick snow.

Minerva McGonagall was more than worried. When Remus Lupin had told her about what had happened at Grimmauld Place that night she thought she must have been trapped in an exceptionally realistic nightmare. More than an hour later she still hadn't managed to wake up.

While almost all the other members of the Order were out there looking for Severus she was stuck here at Hogwarts, waiting for any news, any word that the others might send. How she longed to be out there, looking for the lost boy who had turned into a colleague and friend over the years, who had defied destiny simply by leading his life in spite of the odds and whom she had come to rely on more than she dared to admit.

She was deep in thought, wondering what madness could have caused Albus Dumbledore to act like an impersonation of the evil they were all fighting against, when a heart-wrenching howl and the muffled sound of splintering glass brought her back into the here and now.

The very cold here and now.

Shuddering she drew out her wand to illuminate the snow-covered cobblestone in front of her and saw the broken remains of a glass bottle just a few metres away from the castle wall. Tiny droplets of green liquid sprinkled the immaculately white surface of the snow.

Before her keen mind had a chance to come to any well-founded conclusions her legs had already started to move, carrying her inside the castle and up the stairs towards the owlery.