A/N: it's TNER's official birthday today! 5 years ago I created the word file in which I began writing CoS. how has so much time gone by?

and some of you, I know, have been reading since I first started posting. that was in October, the date of my posting anniversary; but when I first started writing this fic in June 2012 I had no idea if anyone would read it at all.

as always, here's all my love and inspiration to you ︎ i cannot stress enough that without your support, encouragement, and kindness, the story wouldn't have gotten this far.

"It's a castle," Harriet said disbelievingly.

"You heard what Snivellus said," said Sirius. "It's an abbey. Besides-"

"I wish you wouldn't call him Snivellus," she said, annoyed.

"-you live in a castle, Holly-berry. This should be nothing to you."

She looked away from the rambling stone building on the ridge, abbey or castle or whatever it might be, to frown at Sirius, who was gazing off into the distance and looking a bit like a romance novel hero. Maybe one who'd been wasting away in prison for twelve years. When she stayed silent, he cut a glance at her; or at least, at the patch of air where she stood, under the Cloak.

"All right, all right. Sniv says it's an abbey."

Harriet wished he could see her rolling her eyes. "I don't own Hogwarts, I just board there. That belongs to Malfoy's cousins."

"Yeah, well, I'm sure they're a pack of thugs and ghouls. You're better off as you are."

"You can't judge people's families by the fact that they're gits. I've got the Dursleys for relatives, and you've got. . ." She thought of his mum's portrait, and of Reg's dusty shrine to Voldemort. ". . . the Malfoys."

Sirius gave a barking laugh. "Too right. When'd you get so wise?"

"Must be an accident."

She checked her watch. Snape had been gone a good half hour. She reckoned he'd be quick enough at getting the story out of Malfoy's relatives, gits or no; Snape could turn any conversation into an interrogation. He wouldn't waste time on chit-chat.

Sirius still wore the stranger's face; the man had a cloud of curly black hair that fell into his eyes, which he kept flicking out of the way. Harriet could only be detected by a flattening of the grass where she stood under the shelter of the overhanging trees, down on a lower hillside from the abbey-castle that loomed on the ridge above.

Clearly bored, Sirius turned into Padfoot and snuffled around the edge of the trees. Rather bored herself, she had nothing to do but watch him dig up mushrooms and listen to the murmur of a river that unfolded sharply down the cliff-face ahead, almost in a waterfall.

Then Padfoot's ears cocked forward and he pivoted to stare into the woods. Skin prickling, Harriet followed his stare, wondering if it were Snape. . . but Sirius was acting cautious, not antagonistic.

Then with a growl, he shot into the trees. Harriet jumped up, a softly cursing patch of quick-moving air, and darted after him.

Severus was shown into a long room with tall windows that overlooked a placid lake below, so still that cloud reflections passed across its surface, golden in the setting sun. Though an abbey initially, the house had been worked on in the intervening centuries. Carven mantels, gold leaf on the mouldings, and the kind of light, airy decor that wouldn't have looked out of place in a French palace, all conspired to hint that he, a stranger in Muggle clothes, was only an intruder on their elegance.

From the ceiling-high windows, he couldn't see the wood where Black and Harriet waited. He hoped Black would have the sense not to go exploring on his own, or that he'd listen to his goddaughter enough to stay put if the itch should arise. He'd been suspiciously tractable so far, almost content to follow Harriet's lead as if he had no greater desire or care. After learning to anticipate Black being as bull-headed as possible, it left Severus with a feeling of deep suspicion.

He turned from the window, out of which he'd been glaring without seeing, at the clicking of the doorknob.

A fair-haired woman in Continental wizard fashion stepped into the room; Severus supposed her to be Madame de Massard. Her hands were twisted together at her waist; her eyes flicked over him with both anxiety and disdain. He was still wearing the face of the stranger, a man he'd briefly encountered on a street once; it would not due to advertise who he really was.

"You're Narcissa's proxy?" she asked, her voice a mix of fear and contempt.

She should worry, if Narcissa had sent him with more than a message. He declined to allay her fears.

"I am," he said coldly, producing Narcissa's emerald signet ring.

She swiped it from his hand, turning it over with a kind of desperation that said she didn't want it to be real. Mouth twisting, she thrust it back.

"They were out with the others for a picnic in the woods when they disappeared. That was three days ago. We've combed the forest but found nothing-"

"Have someone take me to the exact place," he said, stowing the ring back in his jacket. "If I were satisfied with your searches, I wouldn't be here. Who's missing with Draco?"

"Astoria Greengrass."

It didn't surprise Severus that she didn't even know the name of the girl gone missing, who was also her guest. Harriet wouldn't be happy - neither to learn that her friend was the one in apparent danger, nor to find her so little valued. She'd probably have been hugely rude about it, in the particular way only a Gryffindor could be.

"Igor will show you the place," Madam de Massard said curtly. "Wait here and he will be sent."

Igor, really? thought Severus as she left the room. And will he look like an extra in Young Frankenstein?

The doorknob clattered again; he was just thinking that, whatever else, the de Massards weren't keen on keeping him waiting, when Daphne Greengrass slipped in.

"You're-here to look for Draco?" she said in a rush, as if she'd run at the door. Her hair, nearly always styled obsessive perfection, was only carelessly pulled back, and she was twisting a scrap of lace between her hands.

"And Asteria Greengrass," he said. "Yes."

She started to say something, but the door rattled open again, revealing a face that would have shown up for a casting call of haunted house butlers, swathed in a dark hood.

"Begging your pardon, miss," he said, bowing. "I'm to show Mister Withers to the place. Igor, sir," he added to Severus, who would've suspected a joke was being played on him, except for knowing that any cousins of Lucius' didn't have a sense of humor.

Miss Greengrass nodded, twisting the lace so hard Severus thought it would break. He walked past her without speaking or giving her any comfort; she couldn't know who he was. If it should get back to the Dark Lord that he'd gone gallivanting off to the Continent with Sirius Black and Harriet Potter, he might not escape with his life. Miss Greengrass' fears could not be allayed.

But he'd bring her sister back, and that would be worth far more than empty words of sympathy.

"Padfoot!" Harriet hissed as her cloak tangled in a bush for the umpteenth time.

Padfoot's bark echoed off in the trees. Fed up, Harriet yanked the cloak off, stuffed it into her bag, and took off running after him. So much for stealth; but trying to hurry invisible through a forest was futile as hell. She was sure she'd been about as undetectable as a flying brick.

She skidded to a halt in a small clearing - really, more of a gap in the trees as they met the rock-face - and almost tripped over Padfoot.

He changed back into a human - back into Sirius.

"Oy!" Harriet pointed at him. "The Polyjuice-"

He put a hand to his face, feeling his own whiskers with surprise, and dug into his jacket pocket for his flask. "Ah, shit, I forgot it doesn't mix with the transformation."

"Why'd you take off?"

"Thought I smelled something - or someone. Dung. That's the bastard who popped off and left you to get kidnapped," he said darkly when she only looked confused. "Had to happen on his watch, bloody useless-" He grimaced as he drank the Polyjuice down. Harriet wanted to grimace, too, at the way his face bubbled and warped like melting wax.

"Why would Dung be all the way out here? And who names their kid Dung?"

Unfamiliar and curly-haired again, Sirius snickered. "Mundungus Fletcher - that's his real name."

"That's almost as bad."

"Can't say you're wrong." He stowed the flask in his jacket and reached out to push aside a low-hanging branch. "Anyway, let's explore. That cave wall isn't really there."

"How do you know?" She followed him up to it, staring as his hand sunk straight into the rock.

"Padfoot smelled it," he said with a satisfied smile. "People have been here - badly washed people. Stick with me, kiddo. I don't think we're going to find good company in here."

He sounded pleased, but Harriet couldn't say she shared his enthusiasm.

Wand in hand, she ducked into the cave. The rock illusion passed across her skin like spiderwebs. It occurred to her, a moment later, that maybe that part was real; but when she touched her face, it was clean.

The air inside the cave folded over her, cool and damp; she remembered the waterfall and caught the faint thrum of rushing water, echoing endlessly in the dark. She thought about putting the Cloak back on, but figured if it was hard to run in, it would be even harder to fight. She'd never tried before, which suddenly felt like an oversight.

"Hm," Sirius murmured as they came to a split in the path. When he raised his Lumos-lit wand, shadows scurried up the walls. She'd never quite seen shadows move like that.

Curious, she passed her wand close to one wall, and then recoiled. "Shite!"

"Catacombs." Sirius held his wand-light close to the skull embedded in the rock-face. "Well, it was an abbey after all. You'd think the idiot cousins would've known. But I reckon if it was fixed up long enough ago, they'd have been forgot."

Harriet didn't consider herself a nervous person, but a skull leering at her out of a cave wall was a mite unsettling. Then she pictured easily-startled Malfoy trapped down there and almost wanted to laugh. The thought that quickly followed, of Asteria also being surrounded by creepy leering skulls, killed her amusement.

"Let's try this," said Sirius. "Homnum revelio."

He swung his arm in a wide arc, rippling the spell along the rough-hewn stairs that curved off to right and left. Harriet shifted, wondering how badly Snape would go off on them when he returned to the meeting place only to find them gone.

Wind carded through her hair; the spell's return. Sirius pointed to the right.

"This-a-way, Holly-berry. Once more unto the breach, or close the wall up with our English dead."

"I think our friend Skully here shows that's already happened."

Sirius grinned over his shoulder. "Follow your spirit, and upon this charge, cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"

"How about we try being quiet instead?" she said under her breath.

She shadowed him up the track, their wandlight shivering over the watching bones.

Severus followed Igor across the well-tended grounds closest to the house, then further out the bordering wood, and finally into the cool thickness of the trees, where the shadows grew in the drooping twilight. Severus' intent was to scope out the spot where Igor led him, then send the man on his way and contact Black. The fewer people who knew he wasn't alone, even if he and Black were disguised, the better. Especially since Black was likely to do something very stupid.

The path they walked through the trees was one that people would probably call "charming." It straggled along a stream, black in the gloaming, beneath low-hanging trees crusted with pale blots of flowers. Here and there the remains of a pillar or wall gleamed out of the blue twilight; he wondered whether they had really belonged to an ancient building, or if they'd been added later to give the impression.

"Here, sir," said Igor as they reached a large clearing into which the path fed. Larger ruins formed a picturesque backdrop, making Severus certain they'd been added on. "Miss de Massard and Miss Greengrass were most insistent that this was where the party broke up, and where Miss Asteria and young Master Malfoy disappeared."

Severus approached one of the fallen pillars, overgrown with moss. "What other information did they give?"

"Mrs. Wenceslas and Mr. Wenceslas were arguing," said Igor. His voice never changed; everything came and went with a calm that had to be hiding something. "He struck off into the trees - away from the water, said Miss Greengrass - and his wife followed. Miss Greengrass went after them, and Miss de Massard and her sister simply wandered away to pick flowers. They insisted that Miss Asteria and Master Malfoy were here when they left. But upon returning, they were gone."

"And everyone did return? They didn't go back to the house without them?"

"Yes, for Master Malfoy had one of the picnic baskets." Igor's expression didn't say that he believed their selfishness carried far enough only to notice Draco's whereabouts in relation to the food he should have had, but Severus would think t for him. "It disappeared with him."

"What else?"

"That is all that was reported. They thought perhaps that Master Malfoy had gone back to the house, but when they reached it, he was quite absent and no one had seen a hair of him, nor of Miss Asteria."

"And what answers have been offered for their disappearance?"

"None, sir." Igor's face was still opaque. "No one can account for it."

Briefly Severus considered compelling him to tell what he was hiding. But he would prefer not to waste his time, and instinct told him Igor's reticence fell in with protecting the family secrets. They wouldn't have contacted Narcissa at all if they'd wanted to hide Draco's disappearance; whatever they were being cagey about, it was likely to be nothing more than some minor embarrassment - infidelity, perhaps.

And if it weren't, there would be time for wringing answers out of them all once the children were safe with him.

"You may go," he said. "I will conduct my own search."

"You may have need of my help, sir."

"What help can you provide me, if you know nothing more and have accomplished nothing so far? I work far better alone than plagued by assistants. Go."

Igor bowed and departed, his black hood folding into the trees. Severus waited several minutes, then cast the Revealing Spell; but Igor was now distant, more than halfway back to the house. No one else registered, and the forest breathed unsullied around him.

He strode across the clearing, casting spells at the earth, searching for footprints, for evidence of the ground disturbed. This would be easier to do with more light, but he couldn't afford to wait till morning. If the children were injured, without food, or in greater danger, he didn't have time to kick around at the family mansion. The necessity of traveling like a Muggle to avoid tracing or detection, from the danger of jury-rigging one's own international Portkey, a feat which only a fool would undertake, had left Draco on his own for a day longer than Severus would have preferred.

His spell pinged back at him: there was something under the ground.

A few more spells ascertained that there was a patch of ground about five feet wide and three feet across which had an oddness about it. It was perfectly rectangular. A door?

Idiots! Severus thought furiously, and sliced the earth open. So preoccupied with searching the surrounding forest, they hadn't bothered to explore the possibility that the children had disappeared because of the clearing, not simply from it.

The ground dropped open; a patch of blackness, deeper than the encroaching night, yawned in the grass. He cast a spell to gauge the distance down; three meters. Swinging himself down into the hole, he cast a Featherlight Spell on himself and touched the dirt below uninjured.

His wandlight showed the remains of a staircase that once had led from the door overhead. Shells gaped out of the walls, and on the ground lay the litter of a picnic basket. They had definitely been here - down in the catacombs.

"Witless, fucking-" he hissed. If the de Massards had known the history of their own bloody house, they'd have known these passages existed - would have known where to start looking.

Well, Draco and Asteria were here no longer.

(Draco didn't like dark or narrow places; he'd likely be a nervous wreck.)

Another Revealing Spell disappeared into the darkness beyond the only doorway in that ancient, dusty room. Over thirty seconds later, the faintest trace returned to Severus. There was someone else down here, but far away.

Lumos before him, he stepped into the tide of darkness.

Draco woke up with a pounding head and the taste of old socks in his mouth. The fact that there was something that also felt like old socks in his mouth didn't improve his mood.

He could hear muffled voices but couldn't see anything. A moment later - once he was able to cobble some sense together from the pounding of his head - he realized this was because he was wearing a bag over it.

Indignation warred with terror. He was a Malfoy!

A treacherous little voice pointed out that this didn't seem to matter in any way that was going to benefit him.

In his memory, Plug Ugly leered out of the dark. "So you're the Malfoy kid, ey? I heard your pa'll pay a pretty Sickle and Knut for you-"

Voices filtering through the cotton wool in his head - and over it, though that seemed more like vinegar-stinking hemp - only confirmed what Plug Ugly had said.

". . . send a message. . ." said a thickly accented voice. But it was the sort of accent that would have made his mother's hair stand on end. Plug Ugly had spoken in French, but this man was clearly English. That didn't seem right. "Family'll pay, Malfoy heir as he is."

"You're here because that didn't work out too well for ya, Fletcher," said a second voice, also in English. "You were tellin' Duke here-"

"That were different, all right?" said Fletcher, whoever he was. "That were Harriet Potter, she's got everyone on her tail."

Draco's heart, as well as several other organs, jolted. Potter? he thought desperately, then wondered why he bothered. It wasn't as if you could summon her by the sound of her name.

"This Malfoy kid's been down here for days, you can tell by a whiff of him. Nobody's lookin', or at least nobody's finding him."

"Those're two different things, Dung," said a third voice.

"Yeah, well, they both mean he's all alone and there's no one as can interfere, right?" said Fletcher, or was it Dung? Whoever he was, Draco hated him; Dung suited him perfectly. "We got leeway."

"Not sure how I feel about takin' on another o'your bright ideas, Dung," said Third Voice.

"Shut it, Duke, it's got nothing to do with you. I'm talkin' to Rocky, all right?"

"It's not just me you've got to convince, Dung," said Rocky. "Duke's in this just as much as I am. And Gaston, though he's nursin' his head-"

A horribly familiar groan sounded: it was Plug Ugly. "That little bitch - when I get my hands on her-"

"You've said," said Duke, not sounding terribly sympathetic.

Asteria's not here! Draco felt a little ashamed that he hadn't thought of her before now, but his head was killing him, and it was better that she wasn't; she could rescue him. She'd already revealed hidden, rather alarming depths-

"The truth is we need money," Duke said. "Radigan's not going to wait forever. He's known for not waiting. We can either ransom the kid off, which'll take time, or we can bring him to Radigan and let him decide what he wants. That's got my vote."

"'Course it got your vote, you're the one thought of it," said Dung. His voice had got closer to Draco, who very much wished it hadn't.

"Shut it, Dung," said Rocky. "I agree with Duke. Your plan'll take too long, there's too much chance it'll go wrong. We take the kid straight to Radigan - only we should take 'em both - the girl too, once we find her."

"I've got a better idea," said a completely new voice, one Draco didn't recognize at all.

And the darkness flared with spell-light.

Draco yelped around his old sock and did his best to roll out of the way. It was hard when he was bound hand and foot and blinded by a bag, as well as having no idea which would be the best direction to roll. Behind the latticed cloth of the bag, crimson and blue, green and black, white and yellow lights flew. looped and exploded; the thugs yelled and stampeded; down on the ground, Draco was praying no one would trample him-

Then someone hauled him up, a strangling hand on his throat, and Rocky bellowed, "I'll cut his throat! I will, you fucking-"

And then his grip slackened and fell away, followed moments later by a thump. Draco sagged to the cold damp earth, whimpering around his rag.

Then the bag was being dragged off his head, and he was squinting up at Harriet Potter.

"Afternoon, Malfoy," she said, reaching up to pull out the rag. "You've looked better."

"P-" He coughed, spitting, as if that could get out the taste of old socks. "Potter?!"

"One and only," she said. She was dressed like a Muggle; her hair was, as usual, a cross between a ruffled crow and a hedgehog; she looked, in short, the way she always did, like she went around thwarting gangs of criminals every day.

The cave had gone silent, the flashing lights died away. It might have happened while Draco was busy gaping up at Potter; he couldn't be sure. But looking around, he saw the criminals being bound up in spell-ropes by a tall, curly haired, dark-skinned man he'd never seen before in his life. As he surveyed the bodies at his feet, his expression was distinctly satisfied and not at all nice. That was good - nice people were hardly good rescuers. But what was a man like that doing with Potter, of all people? And what was Potter doing here?

"So that's the Malfoy kid," Tall Dark Stranger said, peering at Draco as he trod heavily on one of the criminals to cross over to Potter. "Looks like a mini-Lucius."

"Can someone untie me?" Draco snapped, and then felt stupid as he realized Potter was already slicing apart the ropes binding his legs.

"Where's - is it Asteria or Daphne who was with you?" Potter asked. "They said she got away."

"You were just standing around listening?" Draco said, deeply offended.

"Where's the girl?" said Tall Dark Stranger, ignoring him with the kind of crushing disdain Draco had often seen Snape level at Gryffindors. He didn't much care for having it leveled at himself.

"I-well, I don't know, do I?" he asked peevishly. His head was pounding, his wrists and ankles stinging, his joints aching, his cheekbone throbbing, his throat shrieking with thirst, and his stomach gaping like a bottomless pit. "They attacked us in one of the corridors - I was knocked out - Asteria must have run." The conviction that this was just what he would have done had their positions been reversed warred with resentment that she'd left him.

"She wouldn't have," Potter said, echoing Tall Dark Stranger's contempt. "Something must've happened to her, or she thought you were with her when she got away."

"And I can tell Malfoy here's gonna be useless in finding her," said Tall Dark Stranger, whom Draco immediately renamed Potter's Rude Sidekick. "Guess we'll have to find the information from another quarter."

He pointed his wand at one of the criminals, who stirred, groaning.

"Hey there, Dung."

"Whuh?" said Dung - finally, a face, like a Basset hound's, to the name. "Who're you?" he said blearily.

"Call me Stubby," said Tall Dark Stranger, who looked nothing like a Stubby. "And tell me where the girl is."

"What girl?" said Dung unconvincingly.

"The one you're going to tell me how to find," said Stubby pleasantly, "if you don't want me to choke you with your own necklace." He tugged out of Dung's shirt a heavy-looking locket and started to twist it idly around from the bottom of the chain upwards.

Draco felt a twinge of unease mixed with respect. He darted a look at Potter, to see how she took this; surely a Gryffindor shouldn't be all right with a threat that would clearly be carried out. She was gazing at Stubby seriously, almost gravely, but she didn't step forward, didn't tell him to stop. Interesting.

"Don't know," Dung stammered. "Don't-"

Stubby didn't say anything, just kept twisting the chain, his eyebrows raised above a pleasant smile.

"Don't know, she got away," Dung said desperately. "Found the Malfoy boy in the catacombs, Priest's Way, but there were some fightin', and the lights went out, and when we got 'em back up the girl'd scarpered."

Stubby wrapped the chain securely around his fist and pulled as he stood. Swaying and staggering, Dung hopped to his feet, wheezing.

"Which way?" Stubby asked.

"Th-through that door," said Dung, nodding frantically at a gaping doorway carved out of the rock wall.

The ropes around his legs lengthened; not enough to let him free, but enough to let him approximate something like walking.

"Lead on, Dung," said Stubby in a friendly voice.

Dung gazed beseechingly at Potter, who stared back, cold and stony silent. Draco liked her better then than he ever had, though that wasn't saying much. It was really more of a slight lessening of dislike.

Stubby twisted the chain and said, "Lead. On."

Draco didn't want to go back into those bloody creepy catacombs, but he wanted even less to be left alone. If Potter and Stubby were going there, he would too.

"Here," said Potter suddenly, bumping his arm with something.

He looked down at half of a wrapped sandwich, and for just a moment, almost positively liked her.

The Revealing Spell was pinging back more strongly at him now. Ahead some quarter of a mile, he was picking up the traces of a veritable pack of people. But he would not rush. This place might be booby trapped, or he might overlook something important. . .

The roaring of distant water, folding endlessly over itself in the echoes, became all that he heard as he passed through the next doorway.

No - not all.

"Please!" a small, frightened voice called over the water. "Please, can anyone hear me?"

He recognized it, almost instantly, as Asteria Greengrass' voice. For a moment he wondered if she were lying in wait, hoping to fool one of those blips on his spell's radar.

"I can hear you, Miss Greengrass," he called back - then frowned as the Revealing Spell showed him nothing.

"Down here!"

The water - the river. It had carved a trench through the rock over the centuries and rushed some meters below the ground on which he walked. He stood at the edge - carefully, for the rock was uneven and slick with water - and shining the light down, saw Asteria Greengrass' tearstained, frightened face squinting up at him.

"I've - did you say my name?" she asked desperately.

"I've been sent by your sister." He aimed the light around, looking at the place where she lay: a slim outcropping of the shelf below, the water rushing close below her. She must have been lying there in a high state of fear and nerves, unable to move for fear of slipping in; the shelf was very narrow, and her clothes and hair were damp. She'd either touched the water or been drenched by the close backsplash. "You fell?"

"Yes, I tried to get away, but it was too dark, and I'd lost my wand, and the ground suddenly dropped away - I've broken my leg, I think, I've been unable to get out - "

A burst of noise dragged Severus' attention away from her, to one of the openings in the skull-studded walls that served for doorways in this place.

"Keep quiet," he said to Miss Greengrass, and dropped a concealing spell over himself.

Light wavering against the darkness beyond the doorway - a clamor of voices - and then Mundungus bloody Fletcher came half-shuffling, half-hopping, around the bend - led as if on a leash by Sirius fucking Black - no, really on a leash, for Black had some kind of chain wrapped around Fletcher's neck and the end gripped in his own hand. Severus had a moment to be enraged, but only a moment: Harriet walked behind them, next to Draco.

Incensed at having his instructions so completely disregarded, yet viciously triumphant at getting everything he came for and more, Severus cut the Concealing Spell at once.

At the sight of a stranger appearing out of thin air, Fletcher yelped and jumped back, tripped over Black's feet, and fell on his own face. Black looked supremely unconcerned.

"Hey, Sniv," he said. "Fancy meeting you here."

Harriet's expression was so eloquent of her irritation that Severus forbore to hex him, at least for now. He'd get to it later. Draco, after glancing once at him, had returned to sucking on the piece of cellophane that had wrapped up the last half of Harriet's sandwich.

"Asteria Greengrass is down here," Severus said, gesturing over his shoulder.

Harriet didn't even wait to yelp 'What?' before running across the room.

"Careful!" Severus snapped when she skidded; visions of her plunging over the side crowded into his head, and he grabbed her arm before he thought better of it. He let go as if burned a second later and turned away from her pointed, yet unreadable stare.

Crouching next to the edge, she put her attention where it was much better off. "Are you all right?" she called down, like she couldn't believe Asteria could be.

"Harriet?!" She sounded near tears. "How did you-"

"Long story - well, not really, but it doesn't matter now. How do we get her up?" She looked up at Severus, no glance or appeal to her darling godfather. Of course, it could have been simply because he was literally right there.

"First, I need to get down. She says she's broken her leg. That needs to be seen to before we move her."

The trench walls, carved over centuries by the water, were smooth and slippery; spells for lightness and stability assisted him down, though he wouldn't tell anyone how close he came, once, to slipping and falling straight into the water. Once on the shelf, he and Asteria had hardly any room. She tried to squash herself against the wall to make more space, but went white as she jostled her own leg.

Crouching so he could take a look at her leg was just as difficult. He finally had to cast a sticking spell on his shoes so he wouldn't slip off or overbalance. The river water misted his clothes and hair, even colder than he'd imagined.

"All right?" Harriet called from above.

"Yes - don't interrupt."

She didn't reply, but her wand-light remained steady overhead; she stayed put. He could faintly, over the roar of the water, make out Black and Draco arguing. He tuned the idiots out.

Asteria's leg was indeed broken. He splinted it for fixing when they were on wider, more stable ground.

"Get-" Ugh, Black and his asinine nicknames "-Stubby," he called up.

"What's up?" Black's voice filtered down a moment later; Harriet didn't waste time.

"I'm going to send Miss Greengrass up to you. Be careful."

"Of course I'll be careful." Black's tone was kind enough that Severus thought he must be reassuring his goddaughter.

That'd be once in your life, he thought.

"It's a Featherlight Spell," he said to Asteria, who hadn't uttered a sound but was plainly thinking that being 'sent up' didn't sound like her idea of a pleasant use of the next minute or so. "He'll catch you and bring you onto higher ground."

She nodded, though more like she wanted to appear reassured than actually being so.

"Thank you," she whispered, then pressed her lips together and shut her eyes. They came open again immediately as he cast the spell and lifted her, as if she found floating without seeing infinitely worse.

Up she went; once she was level, Black caught her and drew her over the ledge, out of sight. Harriet and her light disappeared from immediate view as she moved with her friend. Severus unstuck his feet and re-cast the spells to take him back up the wall; it was damp and freezing down on that bloody river. Harriet reappeared overhead, shining her light down, as if making sure he hadn't fallen in.

Above, someone yelped; Black roared, "DUNG!" Harriet tried to turn quickly around, and her foot slipped off the treacherous ledge. Severus froze, pain suddenly tingling through him like an electrical current as the Vow awoke.

She caught herself on the edge, landing on her stomach, tried to get a foot up, but slipped farther; must have tried to grab onto the ground but found it too smooth and slippery; Asteria cried, "Harriet!" In a sudden panic - how he could keep his head when faced with the Dark Lord but go to pieces when Harriet did anything foolish or dangerous - Severus lost his footing and hit the shelf below with a curse, knocking his head against the wall and slipping half into the water before he caught himself.

Harriet cried out, "Oy, are you-shit!" and lost her grip completely. He couldn't get to his wand fast enough, barely caught her in time, almost didn't save her from hitting the solid rock shelf from that high a height - the jolt of the added weight and the impact of the fall knocked him completely lose from the shelf-

And the water hit him like a freezing wall as they overbalanced and crashed into the river.