i was trying an experimental deal where i put time and date stamps to keep track of the flashbacks, but it was actually worse, i think. so the flashbacks are denoted by italics in the dialogue, which i then dropped after a line to reduce the amount of italicized stuff i was forcing you to read.
this chapter's format still feels pretty experimental to me. i, uh, hope it's okay ^^;
hi again ︎c:
Invisible, Harriet sneaked after Snape through the dark, oppressively silent house.
Under her foot, the stair gave a groan like Gryffindors told they had to write a foot-long essay on scarab beetles' use in Potions. She froze. Snape turned his head just the barest flick. She held her breath, waiting, straining-
"We'll sneak out in the middle of the night," Sirius said from Regulus' bed, where he'd kicked up his feet. Though they were plotting in a gloomy room, in semi-secret, Harriet felt there was something ironic about it: Sirius reclining with his hands tucked behind his head, Snape clearly wishing they'd both jump out the window, and herself sitting on a very short ottoman.
"I'm an old hand at it," Sirius said airily, "and Snape's a spy, that's all anyone needs to know - how about you, Holly-berry? Skulk about a lot?"
"Potter can be found wandering Hogwarts' halls at all inadvisable hours," Snape said from his armchair before Harriet could reply. "The more immediate the danger, the more liable one is to trip over her in some especially dangerous spot."
"Excellent work." Sirius held up his hand and they both high-fived the air, to Snape's visible disgust.
No bedroom door flew open; no eagle-eyed Mrs. Weasley or suspicious Remus appeared to ask where Snape was headed. No lesser-or-maybe-not evils of Weasley twins or Ginny popped out. Even Kreacher didn't materialize. Harriet blew out a breath, ruffling her fringe.
Not that anyone would dare ask Snape where he was going, anyway, she thought, and then remembered it was a house full of Weasleys. All right, well, at least they're all dead heavy sleepers.
Snape looked pointedly the spot where she lurked under her Invisibility Cloak, as if to say, 'How do you manage to sneak around Hogwarts if you're this incompetent' and then resumed descending the stairs like he had smoke for feet. Harriet could've told him the floors at Hogwarts were stone, and that stone certainly didn't bloody creak. Besides, with this house's character, it was probably being noisy on purpose.
She followed, wincing as the stair squeaked, but Snape - though maybe giving a tiny sigh - didn't stop again.
"Since we're not Tonks and liable to trip over that bloody trolls-leg umbrella stand, the biggest hurdle is going to be Moony," Sirius said. He grimaced in reply to Harriet's curious look. "Moony always knows when I'm scheming."
"He's had ample opportunity to develop the sense," Snape said snidely, and got a rude gesture in reply.
"Is Remus going to be okay without you?" Harriet asked Sirius, ignoring their bickering. "Transforming, I mean."
"Yeah. Like he said, that trip we took back in the spring solved it. He doesn't need me or the Wolfsbane anymore." A funny look passed over his face: a darkness, despite his lopsided smile. "Turns out that 'name of the wolf' guff actually fucking works."
"We'll wait until the others are asleep," Snape said, as if he hadn't spoken; when Harriet glanced at him, his face was, for Snape, rather neutral: only a lower-level scowl. "Then be off. We could probably slip out with all the racket they're making-" They all paused to listen to a cacophony of clangs, twangs, and bangs, which sounded a lot like the grandfather clock plummeting down several flights of stairs. "-but we want the longest period of time possible before they notice we've gone."
Snape gained the ground floor, and despite the fact that if anyone had heard the stairs creaking, they'd just have assumed it was him, Harriet was ready to breathe more freely-
Except that a disembodied voice said, "Sirius?" out of the gloom.
Snape ground to a halt and Harriet smashed into his back.
Her glasses jammed into her face; she only just managed not to swear. When she tried to back off, her foot caught on the Cloak's hem. The only things to grab onto were the banister and Snape's robe, and one of those was clearly the worst option; so that's of course the one she grabbed.
Snape went rigid but stayed put, which was good, as Remus chose that moment to come around the stairs, squinting in the bilious light that filtered down from Sirius' really horrible lamps.
"Ah," said Remus, "sorry, Severus. I thought you were-"
"Yes, I picked that up when you said his name."
(Harriet seized the banister and pried her hand off his coat, pulling herself up like she was manipulating an eggshell. Snape gave no indication that he was suffering this, but as soon as she'd let go, he started toward the door.)
"Of course," Remus said mildly. Harriet was expecting him to ask where Snape was going, but unlike most people in this house - everyone else, in fact - he had tact. He only stood watching Snape head towards the door.
"Did you need something?" Snape asked coldly, stopping and turning so suddenly that Harriet almost ran into him again. She froze and swayed, only inches away from smashing her nose again, only this time into his chest.
"Not at all," Remus said. But he didn't leave, watching Snape with a mild look.
Snape narrowed his eyes. Spinning again - slower than he would have if he hadn't, Harriet was sure, still been sore from whatever had happened that morning - he stalked toward the front door for the (hopefully) last time.
He pulled open the door onto the dark, quiet square. Harriet slithered out ahead of him quick as she could. At least she didn't get her Cloak stuck in the door. That would've put a nice period on the near-disaster of sneaking out.
"I hope Black is finding his escape just as exciting," Snape muttered, and set off through patches of street-light and shadow, toward Kings Cross St. Pancras.
"I can't believe I'm hearing this," said Sirius. "I can't believe there's any argument about it."
"If this is something you wanted to do in your ill-advised youth," Snape said, "you've missed your chance. I am not hieing across the bloody rooftops when I can walk out the front door."
"Killjoy - why am I not surprised? Well, Holly-berry? What do you say to escaping over the rooftops, ey?"
"How would we get down to street-level?" she asked, smiling, while Snape rolled his eyes so hard that it was a wonder they didn't stick backwards in his head.
"Scale the fire escape," Sirius said promptly.
Harriet tried to look very serious. "I think we should save that for when we really need it."
"I think you can never have too many rooftop escapes, but I see I'm outvoted. What lousy curriculum are they teaching at Hogwarts these days?"
"You can have all the rooftop escapes you want, Black," said Snape. "It won't trouble me if you're caught and I don't have to spend the next few interminable days in your company."
"Fine." There was a funny gleam in Sirius' eye, like the light of challenge. "You follow Sniv, Holly-berry," he said, while she tried not to cringe. "Someone's got to keep an eye on him."
(She was still waiting for Snape to get back at him for that.)
By the time they made it to St. Pancras, Snape had become someone else. He'd chosen a man with dark-brown skin and close-cropped black hair, his same height and almost as skinny - but this man had a smooth, open face that looked odd set into Snape's cold, disapproving lines.
He'd also shrugged his cloak off of the Muggle clothes he wore underneath and, rolling it up, stuffed the cloak into the bag he'd spelled with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
Harriet kept her Invisibility Cloak on; Snape and Sirius had agreed, while trying very hard to seem like they weren't supporting each other, that it was safest for her to stay hidden as much as possible. Being under the Cloak was a little stifling, but anything was better than the exhausting tedium of Privet Drive or the oppressive gloom of Grimmauld Place. As long as she stuck close to Snape (or Sirius, when he got there), any passersby who collided with an unexpectedly solid patch of air would only think their mind was playing tricks.
Snape with the stranger's face didn't walk like Snape. Snape strode around like he owned the place and would crush first years under his boot; Snape-the-stranger rolled his shoulders forward and stuck his hands in his pockets. It was fascinating to discover that Snape could transform himself at will on more than one level. She'd always thought he was more of a hiding-in-plain-sight spy, not a carrying-Polyjuice-at-all-times and fooling-your-very-eyes spy.
He slouched past the early trickle of morning commuters, up to the departures board, and subjected the times to an unimpressed stare. Harriet glanced around and saw a man lounging on a bench nearby, fiddling with a Muggle torch that he kept turning on and off: the signal. She nudged Snape's elbow with hers and hissed, "Sirius, on the bench, eleven o'clock."
"Eleven o'clock, Potter?" Snape muttered without moving his lips, but he turned the unimpressed stare directly on the bench, so clearly he knew what 'eleven o'clock' meant. Sirius' grin pulled at the stranger's face, and he stood, tucking the torch into the pocket of his leather jacket. He moved exactly like himself, and pushed the stranger's dark, floppy hair out of his eyes.
"Took you long enough," he said with a smug current of glee. "Told you rooftop escapes were the way to go. Holly-berry?"
"I'm here." She edged over and tapped him on the arm; he smiled to the left of her.
"Holly-berry is the reason we're late," Snape said, like the nickname tasted foul. "Along with your boyfriend."
Sirius' good humor froze off his face, but Snape had already turned away and was pointing at the departures board. "The Frankfurt train leaves at 06:13. This way."
"You were right about Remus," Harriet said quietly to Sirius as he scowled after Snape's departing back. Really, she just wanted to distract him. "He doesn't. . . seem to sleep. He was downstairs in the kitchen when we passed."
"Yeah," Sirius muttered. He shoved his hair out of his eyes, but with less carefree grace than before. "Let's go get those tickets, yeah? And then something to eat, I'm fucking starved."
Dear Hermione, she thought as she trailed after him, I almost made a hash of getting out of the house, but I've got a foreboding feeling that that was only the beginning. . .
Ron knew it was coming. Or would be coming. He'd lain awake in his bedroom - or some old dead wizard's long-ago bedroom - listening to the house groan and creak and wondering if any of those footsteps were Harry's, long past the time when she'd probably left. She hadn't told him when it would be, just "in the middle of the night."
Maybe if he counted the creaks, he'd fall asleep. There had to be a billion of them.
It would be dawn, soon, probably. He could see the hint of daylight around the curtains, a kind of softening of the dark. She should've been gone for a while now. She'd been vague on the details, which he'd been fine with - better not to know, so his mum couldn't beat it out of him.
He'd keep it quiet until the uproar really started, and then he'd tell what he knew. Maybe he'd survive, or maybe his mum would use his guts for garters.
He rolled over and tucked his hand under his pillow, folding it over the letter Harriet had written to Hermione.
"You don't have to do this," Harriet had said. She'd got sharper and shrewder last year, turned back into someone like that grave girl he'd met in first year, the one who smiled in funny flickers, like she was listening to a joke only she could hear. When she looked at him, it was like she was peeling apart all the layers and seeing down to the core, the way he did when he was about to win a chess match.
It had just been them, while Hermione was gone. He'd got a lot better at Harry-reading these last few months. She'd been turning into someone he didn't recognize in the weeks, years before (that girl at the ball, practically a bloody princess), but now he knew her again, or the different person she'd become. And when she'd yesterday she'd brought him a letter for Hermione, he'd known she was up to something.
"Going somewhere?" he'd asked, and with one of those peeling-back looks, she'd known, too, that he was really asking.
"If I tell you anything, you'll be in deep shit, you know," she'd said.
"Can't let Fred and George have the monopoly, can I?" he'd asked, holding out his hand for the letter.
She'd grinned, and he'd wanted Hermione back with them more badly than ever, so it could all be familiar, even if just for a bit again. "There's that Weasley ambition. Where'd it come from?"
"Skipped a generation."
He wished he could've gone with her. Not that he gave a toad's shit about Malfoy, but there was something about being left behind - like when Bill and Charlie and Percy and Fred and George had all boarded the train and he and Ginny had to wave good-bye from the platform as they disappeared -
"But a trip with Snape and Sirius together?" he muttered, rolling onto his back and lacing his hands across his ribs. "Sorry, Harry. . . but you can have that. I'd rather stay here and wait for Mum to slaughter me."
Severus should have ditched them, at some point.
It would have been easy enough, probably. But then again, maybe not. Black was clever and cunning, and Harriet was exhibiting a return of her unfortunate and damned idiotic desire to keep an eye on him.
What he'd told her last winter should have stopped -
"Hey, kiddo," Black said from the other side of the table.
Drawn on the glass, in faint lines over the flat green countryside out the window, Harriet was stretching awake. As soon as they'd sat down on the ICE train, she'd passed out. This was fine with Severus, as it meant that Black would be fucking quiet for once, not wanting to wake her.
"We there yet?" she muttered, clearly still half asleep.
"Not yet," said Black.
"Where?" She leaned toward the window, drowsiness peeling away and leaving behind something like hunger as the German countryside folded past, taking them to Cologne.
"Somewhere in Germany," Black said. "Here, got you a sad-looking sandwich."
Severus rolled his eyes, but he doubted the exact location would have meant anything to Harriet either way. She hardly struck him as a geographer.
"Where are these Malfoy cousins, again?" she asked as she folded the cellophane off a slightly flattened ham sandwich.
"Austria," said Severus.
"Do they live in a castle? Asteria said her family has one," Harriet said, off Severus' look. "In. . . Switzerland, I think."
"They're extremely rich, at least. I've never been to the house before. I know where it is, obviously," he added when Black opened his mouth. "I believe it used to be an abbey."
"I don't hold out much hope," said Black, "but it would be nice if it was fucking haunted. I hate to think of any relative of the Malfoys getting a good deal."
"Aren't they your relatives?" Severus said snidely.
Black pointed a bread roll at him. "Only by marriage, and that barely fucking counts anymore."
"Really?" Harriet asked curiously. "I thought they'd be Malfoy's relatives."
Black grimaced. "All the old pureblood families are interrelated from every bloody side. My parents were cousins." He tore off a hunk of bread with his teeth, rather like a dog. "Narcissa's my bloody cousin, too, so I'm related to this Draco kid - not that I've ever seen him, I was disowned before he was born, and Andromeda - that's Tonks' mum, Narcissa's sister - was thrown off, too, for marrying a Muggle, so she never got any baby pictures in the post. What's he like? Complete little shit like his dad, or a rare instance of normal humanity?"
"What would your family know about those at all?" Severus had to say, because the opening was too wide to miss. Black flicked a piece of bread at him, and Harriet shot him a Minerva-like look.
"Malfoy's. . ." She made a so-so gesture. "Pointy," she said at last.
Black gave a bark of laughter. "Concentrated Lucius and Narcissa, I bet."
"He insulted Hermione, the first time we met," Harriet said, with a dark look.
Severus watched Black to see if he appreciated the irony of Harriet immediately taking sides over the insult of her best friend. Black's face was never that easy to read, unlike his goddaughter's. Black was more guarded, appearing to be more open than he really was. The stranger's face he'd adopted for their journey was more difficult to decipher, and yet Black's personality showed opaquely through, like the shadow of something moving beneath dark water.
Black smiled, slightly, as if remembering something long ago, and said, "He's done, then," a meaningless comment delivered only for something to say.
Severus leaned his head against the back of his seat and let his attention drift out the window, wishing for a cigarette.
"THEY WHAT?"
Tonks was really, honestly, truly having trouble believing it.
"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY-"
Remus had gone dead silent; rather scary, to tell the truth.
"-IF YOU KNEW AND DIDN'T TELL A SOUL-"
But worst of all was the way Dumbledore wasn't reacting at all.
"Maybe you should, er, go upstairs," she muttered to Fred, George and Ginny, who were so stunned by their mum's rage that they looked honestly willing to be anywhere else. Only when they tried to shuffle off, she rounded on them like an avenging tigress.
"They didn't know, Mum," said Ron, earning himself an Award of Merlin, First class, if Tonks had been on the committee. "Harry wouldn't've told me if I hadn't asked-"
"You are grounded," shouted Molly, whipping back toward him, "until you're FIFTY! All privileges revoked, I can't believe your gall, your utter foolish, reckless disregard for Harriet's safety! How you could know about this and not tell anyone-"
"Go," Tonks hissed at the kids, and with a final look at Ron, like a crew watching their captain standing on the burning deck as the ship went down, they hustled out of the kitchen. Tonks hoped they were going off to compose his epitaph, because he might need it.
"Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said finally, his quiet voice piercing through Molly's tirade. She broke off, breathing loudly, as Ron turned toward him. He was pale but holding up. Damn brave kid, Tonks thought.
"I need to know everything that Harriet told you." Dumbledore didn't raise his voice, only looked at Ron with a kind of grave mildness that made Ron stare at his feet, the way his mum's furious shouting hadn't.
"She only said they had to go help a friend of hers." He hesitated, then pulled out a small envelope from his pocket. "She wrote this to Hermione, but I doubt it says anything else."
"May I read it?" Dumbledore asked gravely. Still staring at the floor, Ron nodded and handed it over.
Dumbledore opened it and scanned the letter inside. A moment later, he tucked it back into the envelope and slid it across the table to Ron. "You were correct, Mr. Weasley - she's only written a catalogue of the cleaning you all undertook yesterday."
And Tonks knew Sirius hadn't been more helpful: he and Snape had each left a note not worth a damn bit of good between them.:"I'll be back, Moony, but this is safer for Holly-berry" and "You have my word that this does not jeopardize my standing in the Order, in either capacity."
Whatever their business, they didn't want to be found out, any of them.
"Does anyone have any idea who this friend could be?" Dumbledore asked, making sure to include Ron.
Off to help a friend, Tonks mused. I can see Sirius deciding it's a good idea to help her with that, but Snape?
"It couldn't be Draco, could it?" she asked. "They're in the same year, aren't they? I mean, since Snape's close to the Malfoys. . ."
"Malfoy and Harriet hate each other's guts," said Ron with certainty.
"No one else you can think of, Mr. Weasley?" Dumbledore was studying him closely. "What about Asteria Greengrass?"
Ron winced, then hung his head for a moment before bringing it up again, jaw firm, like he'd decided he was in this all the way. "She and Harry are friends, yeah. I don't know where she is, though, or if anything's happened with her."
"But as for close friends, we know where Hermione is, and you are here. Remus?" Dumbledore turned next to him. "Does this match what you know of Harriet? You're the next closest to her."
"For a friend, Harriet would go to any lengths," Remus said. His voice was a little hoarse. "But her close friends are few."
"Then we must find out what we can about Asteria's whereabouts," Dumbledore said. "And their departure does not pass beyond this room," he added, with a steel that Tonks was sure no one would dare disobey.
They were just lucky no one else had been in the house when Molly went off on her son. Did sound pass through Fidelius Charms? Otherwise they might've been heard in Dover.
And if Tonks was morbidly fascinated by the idea of Harriet, Sirius, and Snape taking a holiday together, she wasn't going to tell a soul.
Another thing about being stuck underground in a forgotten tomb was how incredibly boring it was. At a certain point, even contemplating your likely doom lost its luster. When Asteria was gone - not that she was much of a conversationalist - Draco had nothing to do but stare off into space. And it was so dim, there wasn't much to look at.
He was dozing by the light of his wand when scuffing footsteps dragged him awake.
Two sets of scuffing footsteps.
Heart in his mouth, he pushed himself up, staring at the black doorway through which Asteria always disappeared. Her wand-light broke the darkness first, then her face washed into sight - her lips set tight together, eyes wide -
A large hand was clamped onto her shoulder, attached to a thick arm - which would've been a relief normally, disembodied hands hardly being the sort of thing one ever wanted to encounter; but the face that loomed out of the shadows above her did not look like the face of a rescuer. Draco's mother had always taught him to judge people severely by appearances, and this roughly dressed man with a jaw like a slab and forearms whose muscles writhed like snakes looked like he traded in back alleys and did business with a sledgehammer.
Plug Ugly steered Asteria forward with one hand, swinging a lantern with the other. He peered at Draco, who felt he should maybe be doing something other than lying catatonic on the floor but had absolutely no idea what.
"Here now," Plug Ugly said in French, with a sinister leer. Draco had never seen a sinister leer before, only read about them, but he knew immediately that this was what they looked like. "What have we here?"
Draco had read a great many of the Adventures of Flynn Ryder and found that this cliche line was still rather terrifying when it was uttered by a face like that. He should probably say something - Ryder would have said, "Let her go, brigand!" - but his mind was a blank. And Asteria's mouth was locked up, clearly, because she just stood rigid as a bit of petrified wood, or Longbottom when Snape was staring at him. Apparently her and Potter's survivalist course hadn't covered the order of events when sinister thugs grabbed you in abandoned tombs.
He wished Potter were there, so she could address this oversight. If Potter were here, she'd. . .
"And who are you supposed to be?" someone asked. It took Draco a moment to realize it'd been him. He'd said it. Like he was Harriet Bloody Potter or something!
Well, that is what she'd say. In fact, it had been what she'd said the first time they'd met, when he'd sneered at Granger.
He didn't remember Potter's voice squeaking like his, though.
"Ahh." Plug Ugly pushed Asteria out of the way and loomed over Draco. "So you're the Malfoy kid, ey? I heard your pa'll pay a pretty Sickle and Knut for you-"
Then there was a silken thud, like a sack of cement falling over. Plug Ugly's eyes crossed and he slumped down, blinking.
Asteria swung a rock at his head and he toppled over and lay face-down in the dirt.
"Wh-" Draco managed. "WH."
"C-c'mon." Asteria tossed the rock away and scrambled over Plug Ugly. Her face was chalk-white and she was shaking. She pointed her wand at Draco's ankle and before he could stop her, said fiercely, "Episkey!"
It felt like a sledgehammer smashing into his ankle. He almost bit his tongue off. His vision whited out. When he opened his mouth, all he could do was gasp.
Then it faded, leaving a ringing in his head and a throbbing in his ankle. He blinked up at Asteria's terrified face hovering over him.
"Oh no!" she whispered. "That's why I didn't want to do it before! Did I break it?"
Gritting his teeth, he flexed it. No pain shot up his leg, unlike before. "No - it just felt like it," he couldn't resist adding.
Asteria looked so relieved he felt rather like a twat for baiting her.
"Come on," she said again, grabbing his arm. "He's - not alone. There are - others -"
"Whhh-" Draco staggered to his feet; his ankle held. "How many?"
"I don't know, I saw at least three others, there could have been more." She grabbed Plug Ugly's lantern and dumped the oil, plunging them into thicker darkness. "They're hiding stolen goods down here, the catacombs go for miles - I stumbled into them, if we can just use them to find a way out. . ."
"Without getting caught?" He massaged his heart through his chest. A glance back at Plug Ugly as he stumbled away showed only an unmoving heap on the receding edge of the wandlight.
"Yes," said Asteria, so rattled she didn't say, Obviously.
They passed out of their corner of the tomb into the corridor beyond, eerie in its stillness and silence. Draco felt like he was breathing the dust of centuries. He didn't like it at all.
"Is this what you and Potter do on weekends?" he muttered. His teeth might have chattered a lot from nerves as he said it.
"Yes," Asteria said honestly. "She was preparing for the Third Task, you know."
"Well," he said after a moment. "Good. I mean, since she won and all."
He dearly, desperately hoped that meant that he and Asteria would win, too.
i love you all amazingly. you really do mean the world to me. as always, this chapter is for you.