It was silent as a tomb in the Hall now, yet only a few hours ago it had been a hive of activity. Harry, Ron and Fred had portkeyed back from the Isle of Man and were met by a battery of questions from everyone who had been awaiting their return. Sirius, Remus and their teams had already reported back with their findings, which turned out to be a whole lot of nothing really after everything was sifted through. After a quick debriefing session the gathered resistance members scattered in all directions, their purpose renewed by the events of the past week. They all had jobs to do. All except for Harry, Ron and Fred who had been shooed in the direction of their cots by Padma, like chicks being swept along by the wings of a mother hen. Harry was supposed to be on watch with her tonight but she'd sent him to bed with a smack on the arse, deaf to his tired objections about her standing the shift alone.
She was sitting by the fireplace listening to the cracking and popping of the wood as it blazed away in the grate, her gaze unfocused and her thoughts on the tasks ahead of them. She really hoped that whatever Snape had up his sleeve worked. They could certainly use more bodies in the resistance, especially ones used to moving in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. It was hard to wage a war against the Voldemort Regime when most people were afraid to step a foot out of place. She was sick of the fear permeating every single person in her life. She wanted to live in a house by the sea--she wanted children and she wanted the simple luxury of being able to walk hand-in-hand down the street with Harry in the daytime. Was that asking too much?
When the fire suddenly flared green she straightened up, her wand drawn and ready as she waited to see who came through. Damn! Suddenly, as adrenalin flooded her system, a part of her wished she hadn't sent Harry to bed. She was very relieved to see the slight, friendly form of Colin Creevey stepping through the hearth.
"Damn you, Colin, my heart's in my throat!" she chastised, shaking a fist at him in mock anger.
"I'm sorry, Padma." he apologized. The slightly built Gryffindor had been working--and all sorts of odd hours at that--for The Prophet since he'd left Hogwarts after completing his O.W.L.s. He'd been kept on at the paper after the wars even though he was Muggleborn because good photographers were hard to find in the wizarding world these days and Voldemort had a propaganda machine to keep well oiled. There had been so many deaths during the war and on top of that quite a few of the unfortunate survivors had been shipped off to Azkaban and placed in cells that had, until the past year, housed Death Eaters convicted of crimes under the old Ministry.
Colin was one of the few exceptions to the rule, but it was due to the fact he wasn't very threatening and acted submissively, even to the point of letting them take his wand away from him so it appeared as if he wasn't much better than a squib. He was kicking boy at the paper for the those in the pocket of the Death Eaters, and was treated no better than a house elf by them. He allowed himself to be vilified and under-appreciated, all the while keeping his ears open for any little tidbit of gossip or news that might be of help to the resistance. They were careful about what they said around him for the most part but sometimes they'd forget he was there and mention something interesting.
"I've developed my most recent batch of pictures and thought you'd like to go through them. I've been watching every move of the Malfoys since Harry asked me to last week."
"Anything interesting?" Harry asked from the archway as he raised his hands to his face to stifle a yawn. Padma glared at him. If he was lucky, he'd gotten all of about an hour of shut-eye.
"What are you doing up? I thought I told you to get some sleep." She watched a cheeky smile curl on the lips of her betrothed and knew what was coming next. She rolled her eyes.
"Well I got some sleep so you can't really whinge about it now, can you, love? And anyway, I don't like the idea of you being on watch by yourself... just that thought alone is enough to make me too worried to shut my eyes. Besides, it was lonely without you lying on the cot next to mine." Padma smiled and shook her head as Harry came and embraced her from behind so he could kiss her cheek. He sat down next to her at the table and took her hand in his own. He was chilled and she automatically began rubbing some warmth into his fingers with her own. "Creevey, what brings you here at this ungodly hour?"
"I thought you and the missus might be interested in seeing the slides of my summer holidays at Blackpool, Harry." Colin replied flippantly. Harry cracked a tired smile.
"Well, why didn't you say so? Pull up a chair."
Colin dug in the pockets of his robe and set a small, flat, wooden case on the table between them as he sat down. He undid the clasp and opened the lid, before turning it around sliding the whole thing in front of Harry and Padma. Harry reached in, lifted the photographs out of their nest and looked at each one carefully, setting them back in the box--one at a time--when he was finished with them. He stopped all of a sudden when his eyes lit upon the most interesting scene of Draco Malfoy blasting the heads off the denizens of the statuary garden at Malfoy Manor, a furious look obliterating his coldly handsome features.
"Well, well, what's all this then?" Padma leaned in for a closer look as Harry mused aloud. He studied the angry face of his schooldays nemesis trying to read him.
"Oh, I wonder what he was doing? I wish photographs could talk the way portraits can." Padma sighed wistfully, curious as to what had inspired this spectacle. At her comment, a large grin spread over Colin's face.
"Ask him a question." he told her. She looked up at him as if he were pulling her leg. "I'm serious, go ahead and try it."
"Okay…" Padma still wasn't sure if he was joking. "What are you doing, Malfoy?"
"Getting rid of some pent up aggression, what's it to you?" The voice was thin and watery but unmistakably the snippy, clipped tones of Draco Malfoy.
"Sweet Merlin, Colin! How'd you get it to do that?" Harry was impressed.
"A new developing potion I came up with, coupled with a new enchantment for the camera that traps the thoughts and emotions of the subject at that very moment in the image. This is the first set of pictures I've done using the process. I wasn't sure it'd work until I developed them and I just had to come straight over to show you."
"Colin Creevey, you're a bloody genius. I could kiss you!" Padma exclaimed excitedly and the young man sitting across from her blushed to the roots of his hair.
"But she won't, will you love?" Harry was smiling as he spoke.
"Well, not while you're in the room, anyway." Padma teased him before asking another question of the snapshot. "Why are you angry, Draco?"
"My bloody father still treats me like I'm a child, no matter how I show him otherwise. I'm expected to do everything he tells me without even batting an eyelid. I'm sick to death of it!" The platinum-blonde, paper doppelganger raged in its thin, fluting voice. "She is mine. I have first claim and that bastard knows it. He had no right to give her to Snape!" They watched as he blew another head off a statue and Harry and Padma shot each other a look across the photograph.
"Who did he give to Snape, Draco?" She was pretty sure they all knew the answer to that question.
"My mudblood whore, Hermione Granger. Now sod off, I'm busy." The young man in the photo turned his back to them and resumed his task of obliterating the ever-reappearing heads of the statues as the picture looped back on itself.
***
Severus Snape was sitting behind the desk in the Headmaster's Office in the darkness. He'd been staring at the moon through the window for close to an hour. The tingling in his hands had started after he'd activated the potion he'd rubbed into Miss Granger. He smiled at the thought of her. For someone who 'knew' her as extensively as he did now, he still thought of her in a surprisingly formal way. He held up his hands in front of his face and flexed them, checking for anything out of the ordinary. You were supposed to wash your hands before activating the potion and he hadn't had the opportunity to do so. He wondered if there would be any side effects from using the potion in a way it had never been tested for and stared at his wand, which he'd set on the desk in front of him when he sat down. There was only one step left to complete the spell and he was hesitating. What if it didn't work after all? It wasn't like him to second guess himself. He was surprised by the soft rustling of feathers that let him know Fawkes had made a move. He glanced up to find the phoenix looking down at him from its perch on the high back of the chair he was sitting in, head cocked as if asking a question.
"Hello, old boy." Snape turned in his seat and raised his slender fingers to stroke the phoenix's neck. "Due for a burning day soon, are we?" he asked as he took in the sorry state of the bird's plumage. He looked even worse than he had at the beginning of the week. The phoenix bobbed as if in agreement. "It's been a long time. It might do you the world of good. What I wouldn't give for a burning day of my own…" He trailed off, surprised at how wistful he'd sounded and shook his head. Now was not the time to get maudlin. He pushed the chair out and stood up, sweeping the wand into his hand as he maneuvered around the desk and stalked out of the office with renewed purpose.
Ten minutes later he stood alone on the ramparts of the Astronomy Tower, the wind whipping his hair into his face and tangling his cloak around his ankles. At almost 4 AM it was far past the time any rogue students would be dallying here. His fingers curled and uncurled around the wand in his pocket. "Come on, Severus, what are you waiting for?" he muttered out loud. He tightened his grip and drew the wand, closing his eyes and pointing the tip at his temple.
"Claro."
He hissed as he experienced his mind sharpening--he hadn't expected it to feel that way. He stood for a few seconds with his eyes closed, getting used to the sensation of the spell clearing a space in his mind. He opened his eyes to the sound of beating wings and was surprised to see Fawkes landing on the crenellated wall next to him. "Come for the show, have we?" Severus asked. The phoenix cocked his head in the same way he had before. "Right then." He pointed the tip of the wand to the centre of his forehead.
"Conspicio Hermione." Severus intoned and as he did he was astonished and uplifted by Fawkes, who had begun to sing as he spoke the words to complete the spell.
***
Hermione Granger sat bolt upright on her mattress clutching her heart. She'd been having a nightmare, or at least she thought she had. Something didn't feel right. She thought about it for a moment, trying to put a finger on it, and suddenly it came to her. She was filled with an unrelenting yearning to leave this place. She didn't belong here. She wanted to go home. But where was home? She didn't belong in the Muggle world anymore, and where could she go in this Wizarding world where she'd be safe from the long reach of the Malfoys? She swallowed down the fear she had nowhere to go. It was better not to dwell on it. She thought about the evening with Professor Snape and raised both hands to rub her face vigorously. She hoped she'd read his intentions correctly. Could this feeling be an effect of the potion? A potion she didn't think had ever been used this way before. It was like he'd planted a homing device on her--for lack of a better description--one that made her listless.
She looked across the small room to Lavender's bed and frowned. It was empty. She hadn't returned yet and it had to be about four in the morning. Sometimes they were kept out all night. Other times it was because they were too hurt to be moved and had to be healed where they lay. She hoped it wasn't the latter in this case. "Shit!" Hermione swore in a whisper, worry creeping into her veins. Knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep again she wrapped the quilt around herself and sat up, hugging her knees to her chest as she stared at the locked door.
***
Bill Weasley was burning the midnight oil in his office at the Cairo branch of Gringotts Bank. He'd just gotten back from a hairy little expedition into Turkey, where he'd appropriated some interesting artifacts that had been unearthed at a Muggle archaeological dig. The naïve fools had no clue how dangerous the things they'd dug up truly were. No clue at all. It amazed him sometimes. He shook his head and picked up his cup of potent Turkish coffee, raising it to his lips and grimacing at the taste. He loved it, but every time he drank a cup of the stuff he felt like he was being smacked in the head by the equivalent of a caffeinated bludger. He had a feeling he'd need another cup before the night was through, though. The containment wards he needed to erect for tonight's knick-knacks and baubles were difficult and draining to cast and he couldn't go home until they were done.
A scratching sound at the window alerted him to the presence of an owl. He unlatched the shutter and a small, nondescript brown owl swept past him to land on the back of one of his chairs. A closer look and he realized it was a stealth owl.
"Well, hello there." He greeted and reached out to scratch at the feathers on the bird's crown. "Do you have something for me?" The owl blinked at him, right eye first and then the left. "I guess you'll need something to eat before you go home." He offered his left over take-out to the bird and sat down to read the letter.
Bill,
It's been a while. Something's come up and we find ourselves needing a man with your talents. Though I can't talk about it in this letter, I can promise you it won't be boring. On the contrary, it'll be dangerous--right up your alley. Are you up for it?
Let us know,
Ron
P.S. Everyone says hello, especially that git, Fred.
Hmmm… If that wasn't an enticement, he didn't know what was. Danger, excitement, and chance to see everyone again. He did have a few holidays coming to him and after he was done tonight, the boss would understand if he needed a couple of days to recuperate. He scribbled out his reply on a fresh piece of parchment and after tying the scroll to the birds leg, he sent it on it's way before returning to his work.
***
A/N - I've done a couple of pieces of art so far for this chapter. Cut and paste the links to see them.
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/hpart5/vwp?.dir=/Karen%27s+Album&.src=gr&.dnm=scene+from+ANTR+chapter+6.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/hpart5/lst%3f%26.dir=/Karen%2527s%2bAlbum%26.src=gr%26.view=t
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/denofdivinity/vwp?.dir=/Art+from+A+Night+To+Remember&.src=gr&.dnm=Snape+and+Fawkes+-+ANTR6.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/denofdivinity/lst%3f%26.dir=/Art%2bfrom%2bA%2bNight%2bTo%2bRemember%26.src=gr%26.view=t
I've also reloaded chapters 1 and 5 with links to some art I (and my friend Silene) did based on scenes from those chapters. Go check them out if you're interested. Scroll down to the bottom of those chapters to get the links.
Karen