Author's note: Yes, Harry does seem to throw a lot of wobblers - I just can't see how a kid with his background could have a balanced outlook on life. More in this chapter too!

This is the pentultimate chapter, so we're almost there now…

DECK THE HALLS

By Bellegeste

CHAPTER 14: LEAP OF FAITH

Tuesday 24th December

"The Floo's working again," Hestia reported. She had nipped back to the farmhouse, returning with an alarming metal gadget that looked worryingly like a pair of forceps.

"Should keep 'em by 'ere," she said. "I fetched 'em into the house that time the puppy got stuck up the chimney…"

"Does that mean it's over? Can we go? Can we Floo back now?" Harry was instantly up and ready to leave. The witch gave him a troubled smile.

"Slow down, Harry. No rush now. Best wait until mornin' before we make a move. Mr Shacklebolt says - "

"Kingsley? Have you seen him? Is he there? What's been happening?"

Hestia shook her head at his impatience.

"You can ask him yourself, Harry."

"Harry, my young friend!" The resonant rumble of Kingsley Shacklebolt's rich baritone sounded in the doorway. The Auror stepped in from outside, giving his boots an unnecessarily considerate stamp on the muddy threshold, pushing back the cavernous hood of his cloak and shaking away a fine, greyish mist which dragged on the hanging folds like regret. An unmistakable, acrid smell of smoke lingered about him. Did Hestia's Floo need sweeping? His bald head gleamed in the lamplight.

The boy did not return his greeting.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Harry said flatly.

Squatting down on the bale next to Harry, the man drew a long, slow breath, and started at the beginning of the story. Harry didn't particularly mind; he'd already read ahead to the end. Right now the 'how's and 'why's didn't much matter.

"Nobody's dead, Harry. You're jumping the gun there. Earlier this evening, Professor Grubbly-Plank intercepted a message in the Owlery at Hogwarts. It was on the leg of a gull. As all the pupils have gone home for Christmas, she assumed it must be for a member of staff, but when she detached the scroll she found that it was not intended for anyone at Hogwarts at all. It was addressed to a known Death Eater. Naturally, she took the note straight to Professor Dumbledore."

Kingsley paused his statement to check that Harry was listening. Hestia and Hermione were rigid with suspense. The Auror continued, keeping to the facts, stripping the account of emotional content.

"The note was from Lucius Malfoy."

Hermione burst out,

"But it couldn't be! He's in Azkaban! Isn't he? He hasn't escaped?"

"He has evidently developed a means of communication with the outside world. He is a resourceful man." The adjective rang hollowly in the draughty barn.

"The note confirmed details of a planned raid on Professor Snape's property. At that time we had no way of knowing the scale of the attack - for all we knew many more such notes may have been successfully delivered. It was imperative to warn Snape and to evacuate the Cottage.

"Then we discovered that the Floo network had been disrupted. That increased our concern, as you can imagine. Professor McGonagall managed to make contact, I understand, but she says that the reception was poor."

"It was dreadful," agreed Hermione. "She was breaking up. We couldn't hear what she was saying."

"You're lucky Snape is so efficient," Kingsley commented. "Another couple of minutes and you wouldn't have got away…

"The downside of his efficiency, however, is that when the Order - as many as we could muster at such short notice: Moody, Weasley, Diggle, Podmore, Dumbledore, of course, not Lupin, (pity about that, bad timing,) Tonks and myself - when we Apparated to the Snape Estate, we too had to contend with the wards. He's got a fearsome self-sealing spell in operation there! Dumbledore was eventually able to supply an emergency keyword which let us squeeze through, but it wasted valuable minutes. An impressive system, nevertheless! It's still a mystery how the Death Eaters breached the wards. I'll be setting up a ministerial investigation, of course…"

Harry and Hermione both had puzzled expressions.

"So it was the Death Eaters after all," said Harry.

Kingsley registered that response without comment, but eyed them with professional interest. Hermione had the feeling that anything they said might be taken down and used in evidence…

"When we arrived at the Cottage, it became very clear that we were not dealing with just Death Eaters. It wasn't their m.o. at all. No gratuitous torture; no Unforgivables ricocheting off the walls… We have ascertained that it was a strike team of four Death Eaters who penetrated the wards and conducted a preliminary search, but they didn't hang around. Perhaps they found what they came for - or maybe you had already left! Yes, Lucius may have masterminded the attack, but it would appear that he had also recruited back up, 'muscle' as it were, in the form of the local gang of 'Raggnerites'. You may not have come across this term. It refers to - "

"Oh, we have, believe me!" said Hermione.

"This group, it would seem, were only too pleased to cap their full-moon festival with an organised orgy of destruction. It… well… I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Harry, but they've made a mess of the place. It's not pretty. They ransacked the house from top to bottom, emptied all the cupboards, pulled down the shelves - there were books everywhere. It seems they were still looking for something; we don't know whether or not they found it…" He shifted awkwardly on the bale, gave a awkward cough. "There's no easy way of saying this, Harry - they torched it. Torched the Cottage."

"It's burned down?" Hermione gasped in horror.

"Not completely, but it's not looking good. When Snape arrived on the scene - "

"He got there then?" interrupted Harry.

" - when he arrived he salvaged what he could, kept diving back through the flames, but it was hopeless. It was as much as we could do to fight the thugs off, let alone rescue possessions. But you couldn't tell that to Snape. He was desperate to save some of those precious books of his. We had to drag him away. Then the group concentrated its efforts on storming the basement…"

"Oh no!" Hermione cried. "Szahuna! The animals! Eamon! All those poor creatures down there. Are they…?" She didn't want to finish the sentence.

Kingsley smoothed his large hands over his head as though to erase the painful memory.

"The intruders failed to gain access to the basement. The wards had been recently altered. That delayed them. Snape - " He stopped again.

"So, if he's alright, why isn't he here?" asked Harry quietly. Burning cottages, upturned bookcases, routed vandals were all an irrelevance. "Where is he?"

"When I last saw him he was alive… er, he was fine."

Hermione was disgusted that a trained Auror could lie so unconvincingly. Or, at least, avoid telling the truth.

"Please, Kingsley…" she begged. "Harry needs to know."

The big man nodded reluctantly. His training hadn't prepared him for this. Merlin! Not so long ago this boy had tried to kill the man, and now…

"They're looking for him, Harry. Alastor, Arthur, Tonks - all of them. They'll find him."

"Find him? Where…? What…?"

"That's just it; we don't know. He disappeared. After he found the tail…"

"…a tail?"

"Charred almost beyond recognition, but I'd say it was a tail. A big thing, too. Some kind of crocodile, perhaps…"

Harry had shut his eyes, but he couldn't block out an image of Braque, butchered and dismembered. Nausea soured in his throat and he fought it down, swallowing hard. Hermione tried to formulate a question.

"He went looking for…?" For what? A body? Bits of a body? Revenge?

"We are working on the assumption that Snape left the immediate vicinity of the cottage. After that, it's anybody's guess."

Shacklebolt regarded the distraught teenagers, wishing he had better news to tell. The girl was the more obviously upset; Harry gave little away, wrapping his fears more tightly with each new revelation.

"You must appreciate, Harry, Hermione, that the situation was very confused. Most of the attackers escaped under cover of the fog; but those we did manage to detain, did not submit graciously. What with the weather, the sheer heat of the flames and getting the fire under control… takes more than a bucket of water to put out wizard fire. You wouldn't believe the effect of the smoke in that mist - talk about smog! Dragon's breath, more like! Couldn't see three feet in front of our faces…"

"Have you tried the Manor? Or the lake?"

"They're onto it, Harry. If he's there, they'll find him. Anyway, I'll be getting back. I'll Floo you as soon as there's any news. There's nothing you can do… Try to get some sleep."

X X X

Sleep? That was about as likely as Snape's chances of finding Braque in the fogbound acres of the estate. Shacklebolt's departure seemed to have sucked all hope from the air, leaving them trapped in a vacuum of foreboding. Hestia, having gone out with him, had not yet returned, unless she had sneaked in a back way and bedded down with her blessed sheep. For a while Harry and Hermione didn't speak, though there could be only one possible topic of conversation, two separate strands of thought spiralling together into a single, twisted subject: Snape.

"He was expecting something," Hermione said at last. "I'm not sure if he knew quite what, but he was definitely expecting something to happen tonight. Look at the way he reacted to McGonagall's message - it was like an ejector seat. And you saw how tense he was at dinner…"

"Call that tense? By his standards that was laid back, almost horizontal!"

Hermione despaired at how unreceptive Harry could be to Snape's moods, but she smiled.

"It was rather a crash course in Muggle Studies, wasn't it? English, History and Art all rolled into one! Interesting though. He knows a lot more than just Potions." Trivia cushioned her concern.

Harry was blaming himself.

"If I'd known, when he was going on about that Ragnarok stuff, that they were going to turn up on our doorstep any minute, I'd have taken more notice… The problem with him being a Professor is that you assume everything he says is a lecture, and you switch off…"

"The nursery rhyme module threw me at first," admitted Hermione, trying to keep the tone light-hearted. "And then when he started on anagrams! Those rhymes of Sprout's must have been preying on his mind."

"Hmm." Harry was tired now and he didn't feel like chatting; he knew she was only doing it to distract him.

Hermione, on the other hand, was wide awake, sniffing for clues like, she thought wryly, a Crup tracking a Herbology teacher! She was more than ever convinced that Draco was involved in the plot - if Lucius was, then his son pretty much had to be - but the loose ends were infuriating.

"I wonder what they were looking for?" she mused. "Do you know, Harry, initially I thought they were after you - it wouldn't be the first time, would it? - but it doesn't sound as though they were. What else could it be? We'll have to ask Snape when we see him," she said, more confidently than she felt. "Snape can't have thought anyone would get through the wards, otherwise he'd have reinforced them - like he did with the basement. He must have thought the passwords were safe. No one's used Veritaserum on him recently, have they?" She said it jokingly, but she was half serious. "What about when Voldemort…?"

"That was a couple of months ago," objected Harry. "He'll have changed them since then. Anyway, as far as I know, he keeps sensitive information like that in his Pensieve - precisely for that reason: in case he gets captured and interrogated."

"And does he keep his Pensieve at the Cottage?" A sleuthful gleam came into her eyes.

"No, in his office."

"Bother."

Another theory dashed. But then… Bingo! A scene flashed into Hermione's mind: Draco tucking a blanket round the sleeping Professor. Even at the time it had struck her as being uncharacteristically thoughtful - the Slytherin was hardly noted for his kindness. So what had he been doing in Snape's office anyway? Got you now, Malfoy!

It was harder trying to figure out a link between Draco and Professor Sprout without any evidence. It had to be there somewhere. The problem was, there had been so much going on, with the wands not working and Sprout's disappearance, trying to find an antidote, and the added complication of Snape's secret Rosewood, plus the school being in quarantine for Christmas… it was all too much. She sighed. Too much? Almost like a giant smokescreen…

"Rot! Pus!" she exclaimed suddenly.

Harry's eyes jerked open with a start.

"Huh?"

"It's an anagram of Sprout! Why didn't I think of that before? I'm surprised Snape didn't get that one! Maybe Neville didn't tell him. Oh, I wish I had a pen and paper - it's much easier than doing it in your head. What was that other thing she said?" Hermione was on a roll now.

"Use your wand," suggested Harry.

"To scratch the letters in the floor? Oh!" Hermione slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and rolled her eyes. "Duh!"

Two elementary Transfigurations later, she was shuffling and rearranging the letters of Sprout's earnest declaration, crossing them out as she used them, marking them with little dots and ticks as she tried them in endless combinations:

'He made foxy elm' - feel doxy hamm… doxy leaf mehm… no good. She played a hunch and wrote the name 'Malfoy'. What was left? Deemhex… Malfoy deem hex…?

"Malfoy hexed me," she whispered in triumph. "Harry, wake up!"

"Not asleep…" he grunted. "What?"

"Malfoy hexed me!"

"Bully for you."

"No, it's what Sprout was trying to tell Neville. I worked it out."

"But we knew that already, didn't we? Who else would have done it? It more or less had to be him - he's the only one slimy enough to - "

"This is proof!"

"Not if Sprout can't remember saying it."

Hermione, in her anagrammatical enthusiasm, had forgotten about that minor detail.

"Well, it's proof enough for me," she crowed complacently. "Don't you find it satisfying to solve a piece of a riddle like this?"

"It'd be more satisfying to Hex Malfoy where it hurts." Harry yawned. "What time is it?"

It was midnight. The world held its breath, expectancy in the air. Then, faintly, echoing peace and goodwill across the valleys, braving the mufflers of the mist and the wooded hillsides, a peal of distant bells rang out tidings of great joy…

"Aah! It's Christmas," sighed Hermione.

Harry said nothing. His eyes glistened.

"They will find him," Hermione said gently.

X X X

If I were at home now, I'd be lying in bed listening to the bells too, thought Hermione. Mum and Dad would have insisted on me hanging up that ridiculous felt 'sock' - when will they ever grow up? - so they can pop in a few stocking fillers for me to find when I wake up in the morning. I'd be lying there, pretending that I could really hear the sleigh-bells jingling… though I don't know if I'll ever be able to contemplate Father Christmas again without thinking about Luna and her crazy red toadstools. Are they so crazy…? Snape didn't seem to think so.

She settled herself more comfortably into the straw, pulling it in towards and around herself, bending away a few spiky stalks, wrapping herself in her cloak, snuggling under the scratchy sacking. This wasn't so bad. Funnily enough, she did feel safe in here. Logic told her that this place offered no special sanctuary, but instinct…

There was an atmosphere in this old barn - a quiet, a profound stillness, such an intensity of calm, such a sense of tranquillity and peace, absolute and infinite, that she felt it as an actual presence, enfolding her in its age-old embrace. Here, now, on this holy night, she could believe that they were nestled securely in the lap of the Ancients, safe and inviolable, cupped in the palms of a timeless, transcendent mystery, protected from the Dark.

"Harry?" she murmured. "Are you awake?"

Cat-like, the green eyes reflected the lamplight as he looked up. Awake? He'd been combing every inch of the Snape estate, every bush, tree, hillock and hollow, probing the hedgerows, dredging the ditches… fog-drenched and freezing, searching… If Snape were out there hurt…

"Harry, do you know, I've been thinking - perhaps Luna isn't completely mad after all."

"Luna? What's she got to do with it?"

"Well, OK, she's peculiar and she's definitely got several screws loose, and her research is really sloppy - she doesn't check half her facts - and she talks a lot of mindless, unsubstantiated, superstitious nonsense… but I'm talking about her Faith. Her Leap of Faith…? That kind of otherworldly confidence she has. Her belief in powers that are beyond… beyond magic even - in forces of nature that are completely timeless and unknowable, so totally beyond our comprehension that all we can do is accept unconditionally… I've never been able to do that."

"What? You're saying you think she's right?"

"Not exactly. I'm just willing to admit that there might be something more…

"Think about it, Harry - don't you think it's weird how things work out? Who'd have thought that we'd be here on Christmas Day, sleeping in a barn with the sheep and the lambs…"

"Oh, shut up!" He had tiger's eyes now, flashing dangerously, snarling a warning. "You're losing it, Hermione. Can you hear yourself? We're not in some damn 'nativity play', for Merlin's sake! We're in a dirty, stinking barn on some godforsaken Welsh hillside, and its perishing cold, and we're wearing sacks - and the last person to use them was probably called Larry - and the whole place reeks of sheep, and the floor's covered in sheep crap and, ugh, sheep afterbirth, for all I know - and you're going on like we're acting out 'Away in a Manger'. That's sick."

"I only said it was odd. Not that we're living out a parable!" Hermione defended herself hotly.

"Yeah, but I'm 'The Boy Who Lived', aren't I? I'm going to save the wizarding world, right? And Kingsley? Who was he then? One of The Three Wise Men? Forgot his gift, didn't he? Where are the other two? Or will they turn up in the morning? I suppose he'll arrive with Dumbledore and Mr Weasley in tow. You'd just love that!"

"Stop it, Harry."

The Three Wise Men are already here. They've been out there for thousands of years…

Harry lashed out, his fears poisoning every syllable.

"My home is in ruins, and my father could be lying dead somewhere, and you - you're romanticising it all into some kind of significant, symbolic adventure! My life's falling apart, and you're sitting there having an epiphany! Thanks a lot! Don't talk to me, Hermione - save it for the sodding angels!"

He turned his back on her, hunched, angry and alone. 'Nox' he spat, blinding the barn with a jab of his wand.

Happy Christmas to you too, thought Hermione.

End of Chapter. Next and final Chapter: MERRY CHRISTMAS! Well, we had to get there eventually. But will Harry get his Christmas Dinner?