heyyyy my dearest readers (･◡ु‹ ) i said i'd have this up for christmas and I'VE GOT LIKE 10 MINUTES LEFT IN MY TIMEZONE so i made it!

with that in mind, this is unbeta'd, sorry. think of it as a badly wrapped present i'm really excited to give you, though?

i'll be updating with the beta'd version in a couple of days, when my beta has time, patience, energy, and a break from all the christmas shenanigans.

whatever this time of year means for you, i wish you peace, happiness, and love.

as always, this one's for you. ︎

"Oh, well, great," Harriet heard Sirius say as she and Tonks tip-toed down the stairs. "My mouldering dump is your mouldering dump."

"Superlative," Professor Dumbledore's voice replied, sounding, as usual, as if it meant it.

The stairs, not getting the memo that the point of tiptoeing was to be quiet, groaned and creaked as Harriet and Tonks put their weight on them. Everyone looked up - Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Ginny and Fred and George, Remus, Sirius, and Snape - and Mrs. Weasley let out a muffled shriek.

"Harriet-"

Movement at the wall - a dark curtain, drawn over an alcove Harriet hadn't noticed, plunged open on the kind of portrait she'd have expected to see in a house of horror. The painted face was twisted, its mouth was frothing, and its voice ricocheted off the walls in a roiling tangle of profanity:

"Filth! Scum! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers-"

That's Sirius' mum? Harriet thought, appalled.

"SHUT UP, YOU OLD HAG," Sirius roared, rounding on the portrait, as Ron and Ginny clapped their hands over their ears. He flung out a spell that ripped the curtains back so hard they tore at the top, bringing down the bar with a crash.

"Oh, wonderful," said Snape as Mrs. Black continued to shriek at them ("Blood-traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!"). "Really good job."

"You're a lot of fucking help!" Sirius bellowed at him.

Remus put his hand over his eyes, briefly, almost making it look like he was only brushing at his fringe. All of the Weasleys were now gaping at them - except Mrs. Weasley, who had rushed the stairs and grabbed Harriet in a squeezing hug.

With a quick, silent spell, Dumbledore fixed the bar back into place and swept the curtain across the painting. The screams died like a record player whose cord had been pulled.

Sirius glared at the wall with such searing menace that Harriet was half surprised the curtain didn't burst into flame. His chest was rising and falling quickly, and Remus was watching him with the kind of wariness one might give a bottle rocket whose fuse was about to go off.

Harriet sneaked a look at Snape and saw he was watching Sirius in the exact same way - though less wary and more. . . prepared.

"Merlin, Harry," said Ron, perhaps at her appearance, possibly to express the sheer madness of this hell-house they were now all checked in to. Then he darted a look at the portrait and put his hand over his mouth, as if he didn't dare say more for fear of starting it up again.

Harriet waved at him over his mum's shoulder.

"Sorry," she whispered to Mrs. Weasley. "I'm all over muck, I'll ruin your coat-"

"Oh, sweetheart," Mrs. Weasley whispered back, only squeezing her tighter.

"Perhaps if we could all repair to the kitchen," Dumbledore murmured. "Quietly. Except for you two, Sirius and Severus-"

Unless it was Harriet's imagination, Snape and Sirius both looked a bit shifty just then. They traded a look, but, seeming to realize that doing so meant they would rather do something other than have a go at each other, immediately turned it into a nasty glare.

"-I'd like to hear what happened," Dumbledore said. "The Black drawing-room will do nicely. And Harriet."

He paused at the foot of the stairs, extending a hand; Harriet hesitated, but offered her filthy hand, which he enfolded in a warm, sure grip.

When he did, something whispered through Harriet's chest, like the sibilant hiss of a cold wind through black trees.

"I am very thankful you're all right, my dear," he said, his voice dragging Harriet back to the present. "Even if the same cannot be said for that once-lovely dress."

Harriet managed to smile and nod. His eyes lingered on hers a moment longer; then he patted her hand and let go. That dark wind in her chest slipped away, leaving her puzzled and more than a bit unsettled. What was that?

He trod up the stairs past her, and of course they didn't groan and squeal as they'd done to her and Tonks. Mrs. Weasley guided her out of the way as Sirius (ruffling her hair) and Snape followed him up. Snape did not look at Harriet as he passed - not that she was looking at him either. Her heart certainly wasn't beating a bit harder because he'd passed so close.

You're not, she told it sternly, so knock it off.

"Harriet, dear," Remus said, keeping his voice low so as not to set off the portrait again, "weren't you off to have a bath?"

"We got distracted by the quiet dignity of Sirius' mum," Tonks whispered.

"I'll take you up, dear, and run the bath for you," Mrs. Weasley said, quiet but firm.

"Use any of my bath things in there you like," Tonks told Harriet. "There's a ton, honestly, you'd think I was trying to start my own bloody shop."

Harriet led Mrs. Weasley up the stairs, trying not to trip in the dimness or snag her toes on the holes in the old carpet. Unless there was some rule that secret societies had to be conducted in bad lighting, Sirius ought to invest in more lamps.

If she tried listening at the doors just off the landings on her way up, wondering which was the Black drawing-room, well - it was just a little curiosity.

The whispering hiss was just a memory now. She supposed she'd imagined it.

The Black drawing-room was as they'd left it: gloomy, dilapidated, and with the leftovers of Severus' Dark locating spell scattered across the table. Dumbledore gave the bowl, with its candle and ashes, a long, silent look, while Severus pretended not to feel his disappointment and consternation coming off in waves. What business of his was it, anyway? He'd gone to rustle up a gang of fatuous redheads instead of being any bloody help. Harriet had been in danger. At least Black appreciated that.

Severus evanesco'ed that thought out of his head. The pain must be making him delirious, if it kept trying to find good points about Black. He should sit down before something worse happened.

"Harriet's staying here, then?" Black asked Dumbledore. He set his feet a little apart, as if bracing for a fight.

"She is," said Dumbledore, turning from the mess they'd left on the table. Pewter daylight shone past the gaps in the moth-eaten curtains at the end of the room, limning his beard like filigree. "She's renewed the blood protection against Lord Voldemort" (Severus was going to strangle them all if they kept this up) "by returning home; she may stay here for the remainder of the holiday."

Severus glanced over the stains on the walls, the writhing pattern on the rug beneath Dumbledore's jaunty blue boots, the grotesque faces sculpted into the chandelier that hung over the table, and thought, Better than being stuck with Petunia.

"The Weasleys are here to help you all make this place . . . fit for human consumption again," Dumbledore added, glancing at the foggy mirror on the china hutch, where his reflection gazed back with sinister hunger.

"Good luck," Black said with a snort. "This hell-house ought to be razed to the ground and the foundation set on fire. We'll give it a go, though."

"I have no doubt you shall do your best. Severus will be here for a few days to assist. His knowledge of Dark curses is quite extensive."

"I'll be what?" Severus said, sitting upright on the settee so fast he pulled a muscle in his back.

"He'll be what?" Black said at the same time, in horror. Severus knew exactly how he felt, which was appalling, as he did not need to agree with Black on anything else. He knew he was meant to suffer but this was getting to be a bit much.

"Severus has been injured," Dumbledore said calmly, pinning them both with a look over the top of his spectacles. "Not only by the Unbreakable Vow, but in the execution of this." He made a slight gesture at the table, with its bowl of ashes. "You should not be left on your own, Severus."

"There's no reason why I shouldn't be," Severus said, deeply vexed. "Your concern is neither warranted nor appreciated-"

"No reason to lock him up here," Black agreed, like it was the last thing he wanted to find himself doing, but he'd capitulate if it meant getting him out of the house. Severus loathed the fact that he agreed with him on that, too.

"I cannot speak to the second point, Severus," Dumbledore said, sounding, for the first time, faintly annoyed, "but for the first, yes, it is absolutely warranted. You are staying here. Now," he went on, raising his voice slightly when Black squawked and Severus choked, "I wish to know where you found Harriet, and whom she was with." He took a seat in an armchair that did not, to Severus' disappointment, immediately try to eat him alive. "Have a seat, Sirius, and the both of you - fill me in."

Tonks hadn't been kidding: multicolored bottles littered the sink, shelves, even the side of the tub. Harriet pulled the cork on a green one that matched her eyes; a woodsy lilac scent floated out.

"Well, at least this place has running water," said Mrs. Weasley as steaming water came streaming out of the faucet. She'd used her wand to turn the tap, and Harriet wondered if that was why she'd come up to run the bath for her, something Harriet would have been perfectly capable of herself if the faucet wasn't cursed like the doorknobs. She supposed it must be.

"Now, you have your shower," said Mrs. Weasley as she switched the water to run from the faucet to the shower head. "Wash off all the - whatever that is," she added, looking distressed. "I'll see what can be done about that dress and sort you out something to wear."

Harriet peeled out of the dress - really, she should probably tell Mrs. Weasley it wasn't worth the trouble; it had come from Oxfam for a couple of quid - and chucked her knickers straight into the rubbish bin next to the toilet. She had no desire to wear those things again, clean or not.

She scrubbed herself twice with the stuff in the green bottle, then washed her hair with a purple one whose contents smelled incongruously like rose petals.

Tonks had some fluffy tie-dyed towels hanging over the radiator; Harriet took one and wrapped it around herself.

"Mrs. Weasley?" she called, cracking the bathroom door open an inch or so. "Do you need to shut off the water with your wand or can I?"

"No, dear, not until we've de-cursed everything." A moment later, the water shut off, the last drops from the faucet making the only sound in the steam-logged bathroom.

Harriet pulled on the clothes Mrs. Weasley handed her through the crack in the door: another dress, a black one with semi-horrible red flowers that tied on one side. Its main feature was, like the probably-ruined smock dress, a pocket for her wand. That's what she'd been going for when she'd picked them out.

She combed a bit uselessly at her wet hair with her fingers, then let herself out of the bathroom. Mrs. Weasley turned from Harriet's trunk, where she'd been, apparently, folding and sorting clothes, and gestured at an old, spindly stool that matched the battered vanity against the wall.

"Have a seat, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, "and we'll see what can be done with this hair."

Harriet obediently sat in front of an array of Tonks' bottles marked with mystifying labels like "The Wave in your Hair," "Savvy Curls," and "Strong Suit Pomade," and entered the first-ever experience of someone brushing her hair.

"You're all right, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked as she gently picked through Harriet's tangled curls with a comb.

"I'm fine," Harriet said firmly, which was the truth. "Sirius and - Snape showed up right away. The blokes who grabbed me were awfully stupid. They just wanted to know if Voldemort" - Mrs. Weasley flinched and yanked a piece of Harriet's hair - "was back. They'd been hearing rumors, they said."

"And they didn't hurt you?" Mrs. Weasley asked as she picked up a little squat blue bottle. Her hands seemed to be shaking slightly. Talking of Voldemort must have disturbed her.

"Just a Stunner, back in Little Winging. I feel loads better after the bath. Mainly I was just feeling gross - I jumped into an algae pool." She smiled at Mrs. Weasley in the vanity's age-spotted mirror, trying to chase that pale, distressed strain off her face.

"All right, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, in almost a whisper. She patted Harriet's shoulder, then left her hand resting there, a warm weight as soothing as her fingers gently working through Harriet's hair.

"Now," she said more briskly, straightening. "We'll get you nicely fixed up and then we'll see about getting us all something to eat. This house leaves much to be desired, but a good meal fortifies you for a great deal."

"So," Dumbledore said, his long fingers steepled in front of his beard, "you believe they told the truth?"

"They believed what they were saying." Severus remembered the greasy feeling of combing through their petty thoughts. "However, that doesn't mean they knew fully what they'd been asked to do."

"We put spells on the house to let us know if someone trips one," Black said. "But we didn't think there was much of a chance that house would get used again by any of these people."

Then he frowned, apparently realizing he'd admitted to their being of the same mind on anything. Severus was disgusted he'd let such a thing slip in front of Dumbledore, of all people. He'd been wanting them to get along for over twenty years. Severus wasn't about to give him the satisfaction now.

"They'd risk too much going back, yes," Dumbledore said. He gave no sign he'd noticed what Black had said, but Severus doubted it had slipped past him. Echoes of the dreaded phrase When you and Sirius worked so well to rescue Harriet were already playing in his imagination. "Is it your estimation, then, that the mind behind their . . . enterprise is fairly cunning?"

"Not if they hired those tits directly," Black said. "But since it was just an offer that went out to the criminal classes-"

"Speaking of which," Severus asked, thinking longingly of a few spells that would really earn Dumbledore's disapproval, "have we any word on Fletcher?"

"I will be seeing to him after our business is concluded," Dumbledore said. The ominous phrasing cheered Severus a little: Dumbledore could be both terrifying and merciless when he chose. "I'll be leaving him alive, of course," he said with a touch of morbid humor, "if only for the two of you to make proper use of. I mean in feeling out for this 'offer' and whoever has made it," he added, a bit sternly, possibly because Black's expression had lit up with an edge of nasty glee that echoed in Severus' heart.

He and Black really needed to get off this same wavelength if they wanted to maintain their sanity.

"I had thought to inquire on my own," Severus said.

"Severus, you are a member of the Order," said Dumbledore mildly. "That means you work with its agents when required. Beyond compromising your cover, you won't refuse. Either of you," he said, when Black looked a little too smug.

"We have to work together?" Black said, as if Dumbledore had asked him to kiss his mother.

"With Mundungus, Remus, and Tonks as required. You cannot leave the house, Sirius. Doing so earlier was ill-advised," he said, as Black bristled, "though I thoroughly approve of your aims. I am surprised the pair of you went off together." He cut a look toward Severus, calculating and opaque. "It might have resulted in a sticky situation or two, depending on the identity of Harriet's kidnappers."

"We wiped their memories," Black said, a shadow falling across his face, his voice.

"And between you, I am sure the job was beyond critique. But you might think, next time, before rushing off with little regard to the consequences."

He hadn't said 'little thought.' He did know Severus well. The consequences could go hang. Severus would do it the same again, had he a hundred times to do it over.

"Well." Dumbledore placed his hands on his knees. "The Weasleys are members of the Order now - not the children, clearly, but the parents and Bill, possibly Charlie if all goes well. We have not been able to contact Percy, who's quite wrapped up in his new Ministry job."

Severus was sure the Weasleys had been invited along to keep Harriet out of trouble. Black would swear her in as a member of the Order if she asked, and neither Lupin nor Nymphadora had any history of behaving themselves. Mrs. Weasley would keep them all in line. They'd all, Severus included, just been chaperoned.

"Harriet may know light details of our movements," Dumbledore said, "but nothing that would compromise our operations, should the worst happen. This most recent abduction may not have been part of Voldemort's plan" (Severus was going to kill someone if he had to hear that name one more time) "but it could easily have been. And after what happened to poor Hermione in February, nor cane any of the other children can know anything of substance."

And Granger hadn't even been taken for information, only as bait. In the staffroom, during those months where Harriet had avoided him and the Dark Lord been all too interested in his company, Minerva had gone to visit her in hospital twice a month, and once - not the first or second time, perhaps the fourth - she had wept.

"That brave, clever girl, Severus," she had said. "Every day she wakes up and faces - that -"

"Miss Potter will want to continue her visits to Miss Granger," he said, interrupting Black and Dumbledore's conversation. He hadn't heard them talking.

Black blinked. An odd dart of emotion disappeared across Dumbledore's face before Severus could name what it was.

"Of course. You may take turns escorting her. In fact, Remus' visit to Alastor tomorrow would provide an excellent opportunity. Now." He rose, shaking out the crinkles in his purple robe. "I must run Mundungus to ground, so I'll bid you both farewell. Try not to destroy yourselves and the house in the process."

He shook Black's hand and rested his palm against Severus' shoulder as he passed. "I'll find you both here tomorrow," he said pointedly. Then with a click of the door, he was gone.

Severus saw no point in trying to determine which of his sins had landed him in this situation. There were too many to count, and it hardly mattered when he was stuck here regardless.

Black was glaring at him moodily but without much heart behind it. Severus felt the same. He was fucking exhausted. It would be nice to pass out across whatever in this dump passed for a bed.

"I'll get Remus to find you a room," Black said sourly. "Unless you want to sleep in the Carnivorous Cupboard on the third floor."

He sounded mildly hopeful.

"Don't show it to me unless you want me to lock you in there," Severus said. "And don't bother routing Lupin - I'll find something. You can hope I'm maimed in the attempt."

"If wishes were horses," said Black, getting up from his chair.

He opened the door and almost walked straight into his goddaughter.

"Oh! hey," said Harriet. Cleaned up, she was wearing some old-fashioned dress that gave Severus dreadful 1970's flashbacks. Mrs. Weasley accompanied her. She couldn't give Black a wide berth on the narrow landing, but she looked as if she were prepared to step between him and Harriet if he made any funny moves. Her wand was already in her hand - though that might, Severus thought with disappointment, have been out of necessity for opening the doors.

"Professor Snape," said Mrs. Weasley, nodding at him. She put her hand on Harriet's arm. "We were just headed downstairs to join the others."

"Lead on," Black said with a gesture that might have been gracious. Mrs. Weasley still radiated suspicion, but she ushered Harriet past him and down the stairs.

"Good luck on not getting yourself cursed," Black said to Severus with cheerful sadism, and followed them down.

Severus waited until the creaks of their footsteps had faded below before he leaned against the doorjamb. His throat and chest felt like he'd swallowed a bramble vine. The insides of his eyelids burned. His fingertips and toes were ice, and painful.

Harriet had darted a little look at him as she'd left: a slice that had penetrated her aloof indifference.

It was pathetic, to live off scraps like that. But when scraps were all you had, they did sustain you.

He pushed off the door jam and, with measured steps that radiated pain from his kneecaps, started the search for a bedroom in which to weather this new hell of Dumbledore's choosing.

Harriet's heart was still doing a funny little two-step as she followed Mrs. Weasley down to the kitchen. Snape had been right there - obviously, she told herself crossly, because he'd just been talking with Dumbledore. She'd seen him only a half hour ago. If in that half hour he'd gone even grayer and more gaunt, that was -

Besides, he hadn't even paid attention to her. She'd only imagined that he'd glanced at her. It was the crap lighting in this place. Played tricks on you.

It was odd that Sirius wasn't seeing Snape off the premises, though. Maybe he was going to talk to Dumbledore some more. . .

"Gracious Gryffindor," said Mrs. Weasley as she took in the kitchen in all its squalor. Her children were sitting at the long, pitted table with Remus and Tonks, enjoying a pot of tea and a plate of sticky buns in the greasy atmosphere.

"Sirius Black the escaped convict wasn't kidding when he said this place was a mouldering dump," Fred said with clear admiration.

"Thanks," said Sirius, emerging into the kitchen behind Harriet. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm George."

"He's Fred," Harriet said, then pointed at George. "That's George."

"I'm impressed you can remember it when they can't, Holly-berry," Sirius said, slinging his leg over a chair.

All the Weasleys looked curiously at Harriet as she took the chair next to him. Tonks hid a smile behind her tea.

"I was almost named Holly," Harriet explained as Remus passed her a cup and some kind of sticky bun.

"Hope you didn't take my observation as some kind of slight, Sirius Black, escaped convict," said Fred. "It was meant only in tones of the warmest admiration."

Harriet could tell Sirius was amused, though he was hiding it behind an aristocratic aloofness she hadn't seen him put on before. "Was it, George? How absolutely ripping."

Fred looked delighted. Mrs. Weasley looked like she wanted to thwack him for parading his terrible manners around in front of new people.

Ron nudged Harriet and pointed at the fireplace. For the first time, Harriet noticed that its mantel was carved with a writhing mass of snakes. It was hard to see them through all the years of soot.

"I'm afraid the house has been practically left to its own devices for some time," Remus said.

"Why 'practically'?" Ginny asked curiously.

"The family house-elf, Kreacher, has been here, but all on his own. He's rather. . . odd," Remus said.

"Mental, then?" Fred asked keenly.

"So," said George, "we're staying the summer with Sirius Black, escaped convict" - he and Fred bowed in Sirius' direction - "and his mad house-elf."

"Wicked," said Fred.

"Why are you staying here?" Harriet asked, realizing, for the first time, that this could probably use some explaining. "I mean - sorry, that came out rude-"

"Arthur and I have joined the Order," said Mrs. Weasley briskly. "None of you have, you're too young," she added sharply as Fred and George opened their mouths. Ron dipped his sticky bun in his tea with deliberate nonchalance, while Ginny rolled her eyes. "And this lot has come with me to help put this place in working order."

"In the Order," said Fred. "Working order. Weak, Mum, but getting there."

She lightly whapped him on the back of the head as she headed into the kitchen proper.

"What is the Order anyway?" Harriet asked. "You said you were going to give me a 'real explanation.'"

"I did say that, didn't I?" Remus asked with a slight smile. "Very well. The Order of the Phoenix started the last time Voldemort rose to power. . ."

Severus found Regulus' room by the pretentious fucking plaque outside the door. Would Black try to kill him for going in there, or would he pretend it had no personal significance?

Poor Reg, Severus thought as he banished the locking charms on the door. The family favorite, and still he'd never measured up. The Blacks had always known their firstborn should have been the nucleus of all their hopes. Reg had grown up a pale imitation. And yet, his mother had, in whatever way she'd been capable, loved him.

Which, come to think of it, hadn't done Reg much good at all.

Reg's room was right next to the Carnivorous Cupboard. Third floor, next to a door that didn't open. It made eerie rumbling sounds when Severus hovered a hand over the knob. He imagined a young Sirius Black lurking in the bilious shadows on the landing, waiting for his little brother to leave or approach the room, to push him into the cupboard. It was the sort of prank pure-blooded children indulged in, like a Muggle child might shove their sibling into a cellar and lock the door.

Reg's door swung open with a plaintive creak.

The room had once been grand, though whether those days had come before Reg's time Severus couldn't say. The familiar colors of Slytherin hung from the canopy, the drapes, even the walls, in striped silk wallpaper, now long faded. Reg had painted the Black family crest over the bed in great detail; he'd been a talented artist, Severus remembered with an odd sense of loss mingled with reclamation. He'd forgotten that. Reg had loved to draw. When Rosier or Narcissa had wanted to be cruel, they'd tell him he could have a good future as a portrait painter. They might as well have said he'd have a good future digging latrines. Pure-blood children did not become painters.

Reg had made himself a collage of clippings about the Dark Lord. Disgusted, Severus ripped them down off the wall and dumped them into the rubbish bin.

On the table beside the bed sat a lovingly buffed picture frame: Reg on the Slytherin Quidditch team. He'd been a decent Seeker, though not in Harriet's league. Reg was always a little too cautious to fly with that reckless joy.

Severus picked up the photograph; the team smiled and waved up at him, as they'd have done for whoever looked. They were so bloody young, he thought with a clench in his chest, as if his heart had tightened to a fist. As young as Harriet, who'd crawled out of that slime-logged pool; as young as Granger, who made Minerva weep. It had been twenty years since Reg had been this young, but he would never grow old. This room would rot and moulder and turn to dust and Reg would be. . .

"This is Master Regulus' room!" croaked a disused little voice. Not Black: it was his house-elf, standing in the open doorway and looking halfway to an apoplectic fit to see some disgusting half-breed fouling up his dead master's room.

Kreacher had been kinder to Reg than his own mother, kinder than his father or his brother.

"Master Regulus is dead." Severus' voice came out icy and hollow, and he slammed the frame down onto the desk. "He died more than fifteen years ago. Now, the room is mine."

And he flicked out his wand, knocking Kreacher ears-over-heels, and slamming the door behind him.

Ginny was snoring softly. Harriet lay next to her in the wide bed and watched the car headlights from the square outside track across the ceiling.

She was pleasantly full of Indian food that Tonks and Remus had gone out to bring back for them all. Mrs. Weasley had been thwarted by Sirius having nothing in the fridge except a block of cheese and a bottle of gin. Neither she nor any of her children had had Indian food before - nor Harriet, though she was desperate to try anything the Dursleys wouldn't have eaten for love or money - but they were all game to try it. Ron and Harriet had had the misfortune to eat a fried chili. Fred and George had roared with laughter when they'd both gone bright red and started choking.

But, despite having to drink twelve glasses of water, Harriet had had more fun that evening than she could remember having since February, when Voldemort had come back and Hermione had nearly died.

And Snape. Even if he had. . .

She rolled over and punched at her pillow, imagining it was Snape, just a bit.

She flopped onto her stomach. Ginny didn't stir. She hadn't had any trouble dropping off. After all those hours of clearing out bedrooms and scrubbing them free of dirt and pests (George swore it was Ron who'd screamed when a womp rat had leapt out from under a wardrobe, but as the rat had landed on George's leg, nobody believed him), anyone would be exhausted. Harriet even had the bonus of abduction. She should've conked out as soon as her head had hit the pillow.

Instead, she was lying here wondering if the wallpaper was whispering and knowing that Snape was still in the house. "Dumbledore's locked us up in here with him," Sirius had muttered to Remus, who'd kicked him in the ankle. And her heart had done that funny two-step again. She'd half expected him to loom out of the shadows at any moment.

He'd stayed out of sight all evening, though, and long into the night.

This was useless. Her brain was wide awake, and she was thirsty. Maybe she still wasn't over that chili.

Sighing, she kicked back the blankets and rolled out of bed. Ginny was sprawled out with her foot sticking over the edge of the mattress, her hair fluttering over her mouth. Harriet wished she had a camera.

Remus had de-cursed the doorknob; it turned easily in her hand, and she slipped out into the hallway. The brackish lamps still burned, casting deep shadows down the endless staircase. It was like looking down into a dark lake in the depths of a cave.

She tried to tread down the stairs with as few creaks as possible, but, perhaps because they hated houseguests as much as Kreacher did, the steps lit up in a symphony of squeaks and groans. You still beat Privet Drive, she thought, jumping on one of the stairs to make it really squeal.

She was on the third floor when one of the bedroom doors opened - and Snape stepped out.

They both recoiled, Snape actually bumping into his door, and Harriet colliding with the wall.

And the wall started to suck her arm inside it.

"Bloody-!" she tried to pull it out but it was inexorably dragging her inside. She flailed with her free hand and Snape grabbed onto it.

"Stop flinging about, you're making it worse!" he snapped.

"Oh, well, sorry-" Harriet snarled.

But she didn't get to finish; with a gulp, the wall gobbled her all the way . She tumbled to a dusty floor, thinking, I just had a second bloody shower!

Then she realized her hand was still attached to Snape, and with a groan, as if the wall had eaten more than it could chew, he came stumbling along with it.

Harriet gaped at him. Snape stared back with something like horror. They both looked down to where he was still gripping her hand - and she'd gripped back, because Sirius house had been trying to eat her - and they both let go like they'd been shocked.

"Where are we?" she asked, rather than focus on the fact that she'd just been holding his hand. In fact, she tucked her hands behind her back so they wouldn't do anything stupid like wind up in one of his again.

"Carnivorous Cupboard - a charming little Black family tradition for punishing wayward offspring." He pulled out his wand and turned to face the wall behind him, which they'd just come through. He waved his wand at it, while Harriet waited, thinking a drink of water wasn't worth this.

Nothing happened. He tried again, a different movement this time, like a slash rather than a conductor's motion.

Still nothing happened.

He turned back around like he was expecting something bone-chilling to be standing at his back, only he was staring at his wand as if the terror was really in his hand.

"Lumos," he said clearly.

The wand stayed dark.

"What?" Harriet asked as he closed his eyes and let the wand drop.

"It's sealed," he said, his voice low and perfectly controlled.

"Sealed? What's that mean?"

"Magic cannot be used in here. A means to keep magical children inside while they were being punished, I believe." He was barely moving his lips. "It's likely that it's also soundproofed, so no one could hear the child making an unholy racket while trapped inside."

"Meaning. . ." Harriet said with dawning horror.

"We're locked in," said Snape. "Yes."