Chapter 4
Six years passed by. Dumbledore had tried to gather all of the order together, but McGonagall had made sure to only gather a skeleton group in case their suspicions were correct. Severus had never been through worse times than those. He had purposely been kept out of this skeleton meeting, and was grateful in the end, though saddened. Nearly every member that had been gathered had met with an unfortunate accident over the course of the next 12 months.
Voldemort had been furious for months after the failed attempt to eliminate Potter's only surviving kin. He had taken to calling on his servants regularly and frequently punished them for the smallest of infractions. Raids were frequent and a dark cloud had settled over the wizarding population. People were afraid to leave their homes. The ministry had brought in a number of ineffective policies to reduce the level of dark activity and had only succeeded in causing the light forces more grief.
Dumbledore had become more worn and snappish over the 12 month period, and finally retired, leaving the school to be run by his deputy Professor McGonagall. He still maintained a certain amount of leverage over the running of the school by joining the board of governors. Over the next 3 years, the board of governors had implemented a series of new policies for the school. This included offering dark arts courses to those students willing to take the subject in their final 2 years at Hogwarts, and a more comprehensive screening for muggle children. This was done under the guise that they did not wish for muggle children to be needlessly put at risk, and the dark arts courses would aid in the defence of some of the darker curses, should the young wizards and witches find themselves in a situation where it would be necessary to have that knowledge.
Neither Minerva nor Severus had been able to check on either of the girls in that time, fearing that if they were followed the girls would be in danger. None of Potter's friends had bothered to check up on where the girls had gone. This was something that confused Severus to no end, for he had assumed that all Gryffindors had a certain amount of loyalty to their own. He soon revised this opinion and had taken to only relying on loyalty of Hufflepuffs.
Neither of them had thought that the girls would be in any real danger while staying in the muggle world. They realised their error when it came time to send out the letter to Kaylin, inviting her to attend Hogwarts. They were outside increasing the wards around the school when the owl came back, looking confused and disoriented, and still holding the letter it had been sent out with.
Severus and Minerva looked at each other in confusion. The protections they had put on the muggles house should have prevented people from seeing where the girls were, but should not have prevented the owl from reaching them. They both went inside to discuss the ramifications of this new information.
"You'll have to go over there" Minerva said quietly, sipping on a cup of tea by the fire.
He nodded, knowing that there was no way that Minerva could leave the school. She was one of the few order members that were common knowledge to Voldemort's forces, and should she be seen outside the school's protections, there was a good chance that she would not live long enough to return.
He took the floo out to Hogsmeade, then apparated to the small alley way near where the girls had been left all those years ago. It was dusk by this time, and the street was hidden in shadows. He cast a "notice me not" spell over himself, then walked over to the place where the house should have been. He chanted a similar chant to the one that he had used with Minerva to protect the house.
The protection spells came down and he stared at the house for a moment.
Oh dear Merlin! He thought to himself as he surveyed the house before him.