"BEEP-BEEP-BEEP."

"It's the proximity alert that Severus put on the entrance to the crypt. Somebody must be approaching. We need to move your mother to safety. Quickly!"

The noise in the air was deafening, Severus had charmed the entrance to the crypt, as a safeguard, incase of attack from the same forces Voldemort was using to find Narcissa.

Draco approached the Dais that his mother was lying on. Reaching out he attempted to lift her slumbered form off it, but was thrown back against the wall, by a non-intrusive barrier, which must have been erected by Lucius to keep people away from his wife. Harry rushed over to check his lover as Severus stood guard at the bottom of the stairs.

"Draco, are you ok?" Harry asked as he held his lover in his arms.

"Sev, let's get the fuck out of here, Draco is hurt."

"Not without my mother Harry, I promised my father, I wouldn't let Voldemort get his hands on my mother."

Harry propped up Draco just behind the Dais and went over to the resting place himself. Using an ancient Celtic counter curse he had read in the book of Sbkar, Harry tapped into his inner magic core, reaching out his hands; he made contact with the barrier.

The energy was strong, and Harry thought strangely lacking in something. Sure the power was there, but there was no magical essence in play. This was just, raw magical power. When a wizard uses a barrier spell or curse, a certain amount of their own essence combines with the object they are protecting, giving the bond, a unique feel, or taste for want of a better description. It was as if this barrier was tasteless.

Harry pushed his hands further into the barrier just as Snape howled in the background.

"They are coming through our defences. Five no make that ten Death Eaters, what ever you are going to do, you need to be-"

Severus was cut off as a stupefying spell hit him square in the chest. Draco crawled around the side of the raised platform and fired stunning spell after stunning spell. Flashes of light were everywhere, as the assaulting Death Eaters fired curse after curse into the room, with so many surfaces in the room being gold, they were bouncing off them, running at random, and until powerless they ran out of energy.

"Just one more minute, I nearly have her, if I can just make-"

"HARRY…"

Draco screamed as a green light shot out of the wand of the lead attacker, his identity unknown, and the curse shot, unheard, over the loud alarm Severus had erected. The light hit Harry in the back, Harry slumped down on the floor. Draco's wand knocked out of his hand by a Death Eaters counter curse.

The lead hooded figure walked calmly to where Narcissa was, waving a hand over the barrier, and with that a brilliant flash of white light, the Death Eaters Disapparated out of the crypt, complete with Narcissa Malfoy.

Severus came around moments later, silencing the whaling of the proximity alert. Noticing Draco screaming on the floor, the apparent lifeless form of his lover in his arms, Severus rushed over to them both, prizing Harry out of Draco's grasp.

"He's dead, THEY FUCKING KILLED HIM!"

Severus could do nothing, he may be a first rate potions master, but he couldn't bring back the dead. Not even Dumbledore could do that. Kneeling into his godson and his godson's lover, Severus wrapped his arms around them both and joined Draco in his grief.

"Lucius, did you bring me your wife?"

Lucius Malfoy had just Apparated into the top secret head quarters of Voldemort' s forces in Brecon, Mid Wales, Voldemort had acquired a castle fortress and was sat impatiently aloft his throne, waiting for a progress report to arrive.
Lucius, abiding by the normal elaborate etiquette of kissing the robes of his master, backed away, and with a single clap, watched as four burly Death Eaters carried in the body of his wife, Narcissa Malfoy.

"Observe sire, the Lady Narcissa Malfoy," Lucius made a sweeping arm gesture as he backed away from the body of his wife.

"What casualties did we incur this day Lucius?" Voldemort was finding it strange that only five of the ten Death Eaters could still be felt by him.

"Potter and his forces killed Milner, Menard, Quinn, Klank and Martin; we were lucky that we didn't meet the same fate. It seems that they were tipped off to the whereabouts of Narcissa."

Voldemort rose from his throne, and glissaded over the floor towards her. Running his hand over the body as if checking the condition of it, he gave out a maniacal cackle and swinging towards Lucius held his wand out at him.

"You have redeemed yourself today Lucius, now leave me, I wish to give delivery of this new prize to my ally."

Lucius knew better than to argue with his master. Taking what could possibly be the last look at his wife of nearly two decades. He backed out of throne room. Once out of the beady eyes of Voldemort's most trusted, Wormtail, Lucius downed the invisibility draught he had acquired for this role.

Sneaking back into the throne room, Lucius stood far enough away so that he would not be detected, but close enough to see what ever happened next.

Voldemort muttered an ancient spell that saw a vortex open in the middle of the room, through it spoke a dark figure.

"Have you what I seek?"

"I have the one you asked for, the purest blood female there is," Voldemort replied.

"Send her through; I need to extract her heart before night fall or my plans will be failed."

"She is unconscious, maybe if you could come to me, I can make a proper swap, you have your prize, and I can have mine."

Voldemort was obviously stalling, and Lucius knew it. It dawned on Lucius, that the normal wizarding etiquette of giving due respect to another's name hadn't been evident. His master being a creature of habit would always address someone he spoke to by name. Unless he didn't now the identity of that person. No names had been used in this conversation. Maybe Voldemort's ally was unknown to him? Maybe this could be a trap? But a trap could have been hatched at any time by an unknown ally. No, Lucius decided, this new ally was as much a mystery to his master, as he was to him.

"You will have the Elixir of Esrever once I have tested the purity of the Malfoy bitch. I need that heart to make my plans take shape. Prepare for my arrival. And be warned, if there is another in that room, it will be the last place that they witness."

The Elixir of Esrever, Lucius had heard his master refer to the life changing properties of this potion. It was made from the first tears of a unicorn calf, passing over the philosopher's stone. The only person to have made this was Nicholas Flamel, and he had died many years before. The remaining drops were all thought lost after the philosopher's stone was destroyed. Obviously, the secret ally had managed to acquire some. No wonder Voldemort was prepared to have the possibility of dissention in his ranks. The prize that he was garnering for was youth, and for Voldemort, with his power, youth would bring with it, ten times the strength Voldemort already had.
He would be unstoppable.

There was nothing for it, Lucius had to go and tell Severus and the Potter boy, they could convince the side of light to attack Voldemort before he became too strong and unable to be defeated.
He had until night-time before the exchange. Lucius was pretty certain that the ally wouldn't give up his advantage over Voldemort until what ever he wanted with Narcissa' s heart had been accomplished. He knew that if he acted quickly he could possibly save her as well; she was after all, his wife.
As he shimmied out of the secret location he missed the figure creeping through the vortex, his wand out stretched. He missed the appearance of Voldemort's newest ally. He missed, the form of Albus Dumbledore, walk into the throne room.

Neither Severus, nor Draco saw Lucius Apparate into the crypt. They were both too busy consoling each other for their loss.
Draco for the obvious loss of Harry, and Severus, because he knew it had to Lucius that led the attack. Any other Death Eater would have captured them both and delivered them and the Potter body to Voldemort. Severus knew that Draco would figure this out himself soon enough, and didn't want to be in Lucius's shoes when he did.

The sombre moan filled atmosphere was interrupted by a quiet almost whisper like voice.

"Severus, are you ok?" Sev looked up and around, he couldn't see anyone.

"Father, is that you?" Draco joined Severus in scanning the room. "They killed my Harry. THEY KILLED MY HARRY."

Severus returned to the comforting hold he had his godson in, and rocking him gently spoke with contempt at his lover.

"Come to finish the job off have you?"

"What, but my father-"

"He's not –"

"Show yourself coward, why hide in the shadows, have you not done enough –"

Severus was cut short as he just done to Lucius by Lucius repeating his previous statement.

"He's not dead. I hit him with the Comatosa spell…it is the only one that looks like the Avada Kedavra. With all the noise, the other Death Eaters couldn't hear my voice so had to rely on what I told them when we reappeared outside after the flash bomb went off."

"But why go to so much trouble to make it look like Harry was killed if you didn't want him dead?"

"Because my beautiful son, I need him. We all do."

Lucius rummaged in his pocket and downed an invisible potion antidote. Slowly he shifted into view. Draco and Severus looked on with tear filled eyes as the man who had lead them on a wild goose chase had finally shown his face.

"Nilus Comatosus Enivartus." Draco jumped as Harry gulped in as much air as his lungs would allow, his eyes shooting open to be met by two beaming white smiles.
He switched his focus to Lucius and spoke to him.

"I heard the curse you put on me, remind me to return the favour one day."

"But how could you, I only saw a green light leaving a wand –"Harry interrupted Draco before he started to cry again. "I can hear the grass grow angel, remember?"

"Oh yer!" Draco giggled. Severus realising that this was obviously a private joke got up and walked over to Lucius.

"I am most displeased with you. But now is not the place. We need to get Draco's injuries treated."

"Son, can you stand?" Lucius moved closer to Draco who flinched instinctively.

""I am fine. I don't need your fucking help. You better have some fucking good answers? Because I have some questions."

Severus pulled on Lucius' elbow, gently motioning him to back off and let Draco come around.

"Harry, are you well enough to Apparate Draco to Snape Manor? Draco knows the way." Getting to his feet and pulling his lover up with him, Harry nodded that he was.

"Concentrate on where we need to go Draco, I'll do the rest."

"Ok, Harry."

"Before we go anywhere, I have one question to ask you Lucius.""

"Yes Potter, what is it?"

"Well, I know that you used a huge amount of magic to put that barrier up around the figure that looked like Narcissa –"

"What do you mean? Looked like my mother. I saw her with my own two eyes. It was her!"

"No it wasn't angel. I can almost taste a magical signature. Its part of the effects of being part super saviour I guess. I know exactly what your magic tastes like. I figure that as you are a product of a union between Lucius and Narcissa, their magical essence would taste vaguely similar to yours. I can't normally tell when there is such a difference, but today whoever the person in that barrier was. They were not magically connected to you – "

"That is preposterous, of course it was my wife –"Lucius was cut short by Severus.

""Mr. Potter, can you taste my magical essence?" Harry answer Severus' question.

"No, you have so many guards up, your magic seems to be held back, almost like Dumbledore and hate me for saying it Voldemort. I did vaguely taste your magic when we had that first Legilimens session, and at the time I thought you must have been hanging around Draco too much, as your magical signatures were quite alike."

"Interesting. Very interesting!"

"I can assure you Harry, Narcissa Malfoy was the person on that platform, and I had performed the same spell on her, as I had on you. Now if you are quite finished with the magical cookbook questions. We need to get out of here. There is much work to be done."

Severus nodded to Harry to signify that any further questions would have to wait. For now, the main priority was getting to Snape Manor and finding out, what saving Lucius would entail.

"I thought I'd lost you Harry." Looking into his lover's eyes, but somewhere totally different in his mind, Harry grabbed hold of Draco's hand. Knowing for sure, who ever that person was. She was not Draco's mother.

"I know angel. I know…" Harry clicked his fingers and Apparated the both to Severus' home, and the next stage in the puzzle.