"Harriet!" Asteria cried as Potter dropped out of sight. Draco heard the horrible splash, even over the thrum of the water.

Asteria tried to stand and fell back on her splinted leg, crying out; Draco was rooted to the spot; even Dung groaned, where he lay on the ground after Stubby had hexed him into the wall.

"HARRIET!" Stubby roared, and leapt over the edge after her.

"Wait!" Draco yelled.

"Oh no, what's he done?" Asteria gasped.

"He's-" Draco shone his wand over the edge, down into the rushing gorge below. There was no one there, no one at all. "Gone and jumped in the bloody river!"

"What? Is Harriet-"

"I can't see her or that other bloke!" Shaking, Draco tottered over to her, sitting down in a puddle and not even caring. Asteria's wet hair hung in yellow ropes around her white, taut face. He probably didn't look any better. "Our rescuers just abandoned us."

"Harriet never abandoned us!" Asteria said fiercely. "She's just - that's what happened to me, I fell-"

"Well, now she's in need of rescuing herself, looks like." It was decidedly unfair. Potter was supposed to be the rescuer, not the other way around. If Potter could slip and fall into rivers, what good would they be? And they'd been left alone with that despicable Dung. . .

Draco got up and wobbled over to Dung, who was mumbling under his breath, looking barely half-conscious as he lay prone on the floor. The locket Stubby had been using as a leash dangled down by his ear.

Draco hefted the locket in his hand. It was heavy and gold, stubbled with tiny emeralds. As he cradled it, something seemed to whisper through him, like the thread of an old spell he'd heard his mother murmuring in a dark room, the front of her face warmed by a fire, the only light, and all the rest of her in shadow. . .

He felt suddenly as if he knew exactly what to do.

"Rennervate," he whispered.

Dung stirred, groaning piteously. Draco twisted the locket chain hard, digging the links into Dung's stubbly throat.

His eyes cranked open, streaming, straining blearily up at Draco, who felt a rush of contempt and disgust that steadied him like the last of Potter's sandwich. "Wha-"

"Get up," Draco snarled, hauling on the chain so that Dung, wheezing, wriggled upright, falling back and choking as the leash pulled. "You're taking us out of here."

"Wh-lemme just-hold on, n-now-"

Draco just kept pulling until Dung found his feet, his Basset-hound face red and his eyes bloodshot. He was miserable and pathetic, a loathsome figure; Draco's lip curled.

"You can walk, or you can dangle and choke," Draco said coldly. "Asteria-" He glanced back at her; she'd managed to pull herself up, leaning most of her weight gingerly on her good leg, some emotion in her face that Draco didn't have time to parse. He could tell it wasn't important; he dismissed it.

"Try to keep up," he said.

Turning back to Dung, he jabbed his wand into his back, enjoying the wheeze of pain this earned. He smiled. "Walk - unless you want to know what curses my father's taught me."

Shuffling, limping, Dung got moving. His face didn't look plotting or whinging; on the contrary, he looked unsettled.

Draco's smile widened. He glanced back again to make sure Asteria was keeping up. She'd moved to the wall, using it to help herself along. Her eyes met his, then slid away.

Shrugging, he turned his attention back to Dung. She was following; that was all that mattered.

The locket was cold in his hand, but it felt. . . pleasant.

Tumbled and battered and freezing, Harriet spun in the water, trying to kick to get her head above the surface, but in the black, rushing river not knowing which way was up-

She slammed into a rock, hard enough to pulverize all the air in her lungs; the rushing water pinned her there, wedged against the stone; she pushed and clawed, needing to get up, to get out; head spinning, mouth full of water, Don't panic don't panic drumming at her head like the current-

Something alive, moving, clawed her wrist - she wrenched her arm around and grabbed on -

Her head broke free of the water, stinging in the cold; through her dripping fringe, she saw Snape's blanched face hanging over the rock. His hand was a vice on her forearm.

She seized his other hand, and together they hauled her out of the freezing river.

Hacking up water, slopping her hair out of her face, she squinted up at Snape - and it was Snape, not the Polyjuiced stranger. A bloody gash scraped over a purple bruise on his cheekbone; his black hair hung dripping around his face, like running ink; there was some wild light in his eye, and he was shivering, certainly from the cold, and maybe from the shock of almost drowning.

"How are your glasses still on?" he asked, effectively so inane a comment from Snape that she was worried that blow to his cheek had affected his head.

". . . I've been sticking them on with a charm since the Second Task," she said after a moment. "Hermione found it for me before. . . before."

It was brighter in the cave, though still dark, with a light breeze that felt like an arctic blast when you were freezing wet. Some meters away, past the gaping mouth in the rock, the bottomless sky glittered where the river dropped away. They were at the edge of the waterfall she'd stood admiring earlier.

The world spun slowly around her as she stared at the cut-out of the night sky. She pulled her glasses off to rub at her eyes, and scooted around on the rock until her back was to the drop.

Glasses back on, she could look full at Snape. He was staring around at the rippling black river and their rock in the middle like he didn't know what to do. Seeing him like that was as unsettling as almost going over the waterfall.

It must be the Vow messing with him. Yeah, and she bet he'd really welcome her asking about it. Always glad to talk about himself, was Snape.

"Next time I dunk myself into some water," she said, testing his mood, "it had better be on a tropical beach."

Snape just stared at her; not with the silent indignation he drummed up whenever he'd just been handed a truly stupid piece of conversation, but with an absence of mind that from him was downright disturbing.

"You okay?" she asked guardedly. He wouldn't tell her, but depending on the way he refused to answer-

"I'm never better than when I've been plunged into a freezing river and battered around on the rocks."

She considered whether this sarcasm was evidence that he wasn't so badly off, but reviewing her memories of badly injured Snapes she'd encountered only made her certain he'd still be a sarcastic bastard even if his leg was falling off.

A deeper scowl than usual darkened his bruised face as he rooted in his jacket; he switched hands to grope in the other side.

"What?" she asked.

"The flask must have fallen out," he said, in a tone so flat he could've shaved with it.

"So you're stuck as you?"

"Evidently." He swiped his dripping hair back, wincing as he caught the bruise. His cuff tugged back from his skinny wrist, something she'd never actually seen before. Obviously Snape had wrists, but they were always trapped in his robes.

That thin column of skin in motion drew her eyes to the place where the collar of his shirt gaped. It was missing two buttons - might always have done; she hadn't noticed before - and exposed the sharp line of his collarbone. His wet hair was stuck to his neck, strands of inky black fanning over the curve of his throat.

She must've hit her head. Hard. Or got too much water up her nose.

She scrubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to get warm. It was fucking cold high up in the bloody mountains at night, soaked through with cave river water. "So I guess it would be a good idea to get off this rock."

Snape only grunted - maybe he was feeling worse than usual - and pulled out his wand. She couldn't resist asking her own inane question. "You held onto that, too?"

"I have my own foresight. Though not, apparently, enough for a fool," he said with heavy disgust.

He looked like Neville had just melted a cauldron in class. She didn't think she'd ever heard Snape insult himself. She decided the best method of dealing with it was simply to change the subject.

"How are we getting out?"

"Apparating. To the place where I told you and Black to wait for me." But then the anger fell away and he looked almost hesitant. It was only a flash; could have been a trick of moonlight on the water or a shifting cloud in the star-studded sky. "You remember what to do, I trust?"

She thought of a summer three years ago when he'd held out his arm and she'd gingerly wound her fingers in his sleeve, thinking of those Ravenclaws researching whether he was the meanest teacher in the world. She felt like she was looking over the edge of the waterfall again, thinking how much had happened since then, how much she could add to that study and never would.

She put out her hand. His hesitation was hardly there, except in her knowing how decisive he was at any other time.

His skin was cold from the river. A moment later, the crushing pressure of Apparition snatched her into a tunnel of wind and sound, streaked with moonlight and swirling blackness.

She was swaying on the bank below the waterfall, the river pounding down the cliff behind her. Snape snatched his hand away without any of his usual composure. She tucked her freezing hands into her jacket, wishing it did a damn bit of good when your jacket was wet through.

Snape started to turn away, then faced her again with a look of deep reproach. She was just wondering what she possibly could've done when he pointed his wand at her. He couldn't be about to hex her-

A warm breeze folded over her, evaporating all the water from her clothes and hair. Her glasses steamed; she had to pull them off and rub them on her now-dry shirt to clear them. By the time they were on again, Snape was waving his wand over himself, a brittle sneer dug into the lines around his mouth, and she understood: he was, once again, angry at himself for not thinking about drying them off earlier.

Choosing ignorance as the wisest route, she asked, "How are we finding Sirius and the others?"

"You know your godfather best," he said, with as much distaste as if Sirius were the one melting cauldrons. "Where will we find him?"

"Probably how we got into the catacombs. I think it's this way. . . Everything's all dark now, though. Looks different."

She rather expected Snape to sneer something like 'I hadn't noticed,' but all he said was, "Did you take a direction? Did he?"

"No, he was - following a scent."

The whites of his eyes flashed in a way that suggested he'd rolled his eyes, but it was too dark to completely tell. She was half-indignant that he'd robbed her of the chance of really seeing it and half wanting to laugh.

"All right," he said, irritable and weary, his hand going into his jacket again. "I need some materials."

"What for?"

"To find your way back to- what's that?"

Raising his wand, he strode back to the edge of the bank. Harriet jogged after him, straining to hear anything over the roar of the waterfall.

"Is someone up there?" She squinted at the cave-mouth above, where a bright blue light winked out of the darkness. Then her jaw fell open. "That's-"

"I am fucking going to kill him," hissed Snape.

I am fucking going to kill him and I'll enjoy it-

Harriet said, "Let me handle it."

He was momentarily speechless, and it wasn't from his aches and pains. "I beg your pardon?"

"You enjoy having a go at each other too much. I'll talk to him when he-"

With a soft pop, Black appeared dripping wet in the clearing. He was still Polyjuiced, Severus saw with no small amount of resentful fury.

"Holly-berry!" Black grabbed her up in a hug before she could get a word in or out. "Fucking thank Merlin-"

Harriet patted him on the chest as she pushed him back. "Sirius," she said, a certain steeliness in her tone, "where's Asteria and Malfoy?"

"I-oh. Back where I left them, maybe." Black started patting her down. "You're okay? I barely didn't bloody drown, I'll tell you-"

"You just left them? We're supposed to be rescuing them!"

"Now you understand the little value I placed on Black's being a part of this expedition," Severus snarled softly.

Harriet sent him a clear 'What did I say?' glare; Black wore an edge to his sneer that was as good as a personal signature.

"Sorry to see that ugly conk of yours again, Sniv-ow," he said, sounding more surprised than hurt, for Harriet had stood on his foot.

"We're not standing here in the bloody woods in the dead of night so you two can have one of your bloody rows you're so fond of, Asteria and Draco need us to help them, and that's what we're bloody going to do! So you both can stow it, and Sirius, you can take us back to the cave."

Black blinked; Severus felt less surprised that she could let loose on them than she had, when one of the pair was her darling godfather. Though he had no right to be, he was proud of her - not even (principally) for going off on Black.

"Right away, kiddo," said Black calmly, and transformed into the enormous shaggy dog that Severus rather preferred. At least as a mongrel, Black couldn't talk.

Harriet shot Severus a brief, steaming look as she marched after the dog into the trees. Severus wisely chose silence - no sacrifice, as his head still felt far too woolly from the Vow and the near-drowning, the gutting scare of barely hauling her out of the river in time. When she'd hit the rock, he'd had only seconds to grab her before the river whipped her away again.

Some protector you are. Some protector you've ever been.

The waterfall thrummed behind him, a heartless, rhythmic taunt.

Harriet fumed as she stomped through the wood after Padfoot, stumbling over uneven patches of ground and whipping her legs into branches and whacking her face with leaves. She was furious at Sirius for leaving Asteria behind, furious at herself for falling in the river, and furious at Snape for being so - Snape! He could try helping, instead of winding Sirius up. . .

And these stupid fucking trees! They could try pissing off out of the way-

And somehow - they did. The ground stayed uneven, but it was like the trees and bushes had suddenly decided to gently sway out of her way. She stopped, confused.

"What is it?" Snape asked sharply from behind her. She didn't jump. She really didn't.

"I - the trees are acting weird." She put up a hand at the low-hanging branch that should have taken a rude shot at her nose and watched in fascination as it drifted back as if caught in a gentle breeze.

"Yes, I know. It's a charm, Miss Potter. Magic. Beyond N.E.W.T.-level, or you'd be breaking Flitwick's heart. You can keep moving."

She blinked at him several times. A snuffling in the underbrush and Padfoot rejoined them, barking a question. She started walking again, staring at the branches that folded away from her faces and the bushes that softly parted around her knees.

Okay, maybe she'd be a little less mad at him. For a bit.

After maybe ten minutes, the branches lifted away entirely: they'd come to the clearing again where the rock-face met the forest and the entrance was cloaked. Sirius changed back into himself, once again really himself, the Animagus transformation having wiped the Polyjuice out. He grimaced, rubbing his face with both hands.

"Can all that transformation really be good for you?" she asked. Maybe it was just the moonlight, or his own jaunt in the river, but he didn't look well.

"Probably not, but we haven't got a real choice-"

Then the question became moot as Dung, Malfoy, and Asteria emerged from the rock-face and Sirius turned around at the noise. Harriet could only watch helplessly as Dung yelped and stumbled into Malfoy, who shouted, "Sirius Black!" in a high-pitched voice closer to a scream and shoved Dung at Sirius, as if trying to distract him or offer him as a sacrifice. He spun around and would've shot back into the cave if the illusion of solid rock hadn't brought him up short.

"Wh-where'd it go?" he said frantically.

"Belt up, Malfoy," Harriet snapped, stepping over Dung (who'd fallen on his face) and catching Asteria by the arm as she swayed. Her face was completely white in the moonlight; Harriet shrugged off her jacket (now dry, thanks to Snape), and pulled it around Asteria.

"Potter! that's a - wait." Malfoy switched the shaking finger he'd been pointing at Sirius (who was standing calmly and silently, arms folded) to Harriet. "He should be trying to kill you!"

"Going to shove me at him next and hope he finishes me off while you make a break for it?" she asked with heavy sarcasm. "He's not here to kill you, idiot."

She helped Asteria sit down on a mossy rock. Asteria's cold, damp hand clung to hers, and her eyes were glued on Sirius, who rocked forward on the balls of his feet but kept silent. If only he could show the same restraint with Snape. Wait, where was Snape anyway? The clearing was empty of him. He'd been right behind her when the last branch cleared.

Malfoy probably shouldn't know he's here, on a jolly jaunt with his worse enemies, she thought. Obviously.

"You okay?" she asked, then realized why Asteria was moving so stiffly. "Wait, is your leg still - Sirius, you didn't even fix her leg?"

"Didn't want you to learn this side of me, Holly-berry," he said, holding his hands out, "but once you get past the spells-flying-take-the-bastards-down bit, I'm shit at rescues."

"Can you fix her leg? Malfoy, don't even think about running."

"I wasn't." Malfoy sounded affronted. "But why is he calling you - what did he call you?"

"I'm her godfather," Sirius said as he crouched down next to Asteria, who drew closer to Harriet. "Which you know, I'm sure, being Narcissa's brat."

"I'm not - ow!" Malfoy stumbled, clutching his knee, as Dung jumped to his feet. He was still bound in his ropes, but he'd got his feet free, and he was charging off into the trees. When Harriet flung a hex at his back, maybe putting a bit more force into it than strictly necessary, he plunged into the bushes head-over-heels with a yelp.

"Good aim, Holly-berry," Sirius said, spinning his wand in a leisurely loop. Dung was dragged backwards out of the underbrush, leaves and twigs clinging to his ragged hair.

Sirius waved a drying spell over Asteria, swept his wand down her leg to vanish the split and repair the break, and then lit a tidy fire on the ground. Malfoy didn't seem to know what to do about this. Clearly these were not the actions of a bloodthirsty murderer, or at least he was hoping they weren't.

"Better?" Harriet asked Asteria, who was flexing her now splint-less leg.

"Yes," she whispered, so quiet that even holding her hand, Harriet barely heard her.

Dung had ended up at Sirius' feet. Closer to, Harriet saw his nose was black and blue and his right eye swollen; he looked like he'd been kicked and dragged and tossed around, and she felt suddenly uncomfortable and rather sad. She and Sirius had sneaked up on the kidnappers early enough to overhear Dung implying that he was the one responsible for those two boneheads, Fink and Nottle, finding her - he'd been planning to sell off Malfoy, and Asteria too - but they didn't have to treat anyone like this.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked Sirius.

"One tic," he said, and hit Dung with what was probably a full Body Bind, from the way he went rigid.

"You stay there, Malfoy," she said when he looked like he was going to follow them.

"Oh I'm sorry, Potter, I didn't realize you'd been appointed the boss of me-"

"Better late than never. I'll be right back," she to Asteria, squeezing her hand, and left Malfoy muttering under his breath.

"What's up?" Sirius asked once they'd reached the edge of the trees, a position where they wouldn't be overheard but could still keep an eye on the others.

"We should stop treating Dung like a sack of - well, you know. It's not good," she said, when he only stared at her with a kind of waiting expression. "We're better than that."

He wore a faint, funny smile. "Maybe you are, kiddo. I'm afraid I never made it that far. That Malfoy snot certainly never did. And as for Sniv - well, speak of the Devil."

Harriet almost jumped, realizing Snape was glaring ferociously at them out of the dark tangle of trees.

"Are we supposed to be rescuing the children or having a bloody confab in the woods?" he hissed. He must've been fuming at their idiocy and wishing they'd all choke on their wands, unable to come out and tell them off without revealing himself. It had probably been torture.

"Thought you'd've Apparated up to the house to get a rescue party," Sirius said lazily, arms folded.

"He can't or they'd see it was him," Harriet said, wanting to add, You know that.

"Take lessons from your goddaughter, Black, on how not to be a fatwit. You're coming with me up to the house."

"Why me?"

"You know why," Harriet said, too exasperated to be polite any longer, "you're the only other one who can Apparate and you've got to know where we're going." Sirius sent her a slightly hurt look, but she was dead tired, cold, aching, and annoyed. "Look, we all want to get back where we bloody well belong, don't we? Asteria hasn't had anything real to eat in days, I bet, and I gave the last of my sandwich to Malfoy."

"All right, all right." Sirius squeezed her shoulder. "If Sniv'll show me without Splinching me-"

"You're lucky the children need you, Black," said Snape with a snarl, and seizing Sirius' arm he wrenched them away with a crack.

Harriet waited a few moments in the blessed silence, alone. Snape and Sirius constantly bitching at each other was about as much fun as dealing with Malfoy on a good day. She needed a moment to fortify herself.

But she wouldn't leave Asteria alone with him longer than that. As soon as she was sure she wouldn't knock his teeth into his ear the minute he opened his mouth, she joined them again.

"I can't believe he's just let us alone with this thug," Malfoy was complaining as Harriet sat on the rock next to Asteria, who wound her fingers in Harriet's shirt hem. "He tried to sell us off to some sort of crime lord!"

Don't hex him, don't hex him. "Five minutes ago, you were ready to run off screaming because he's Sirius Black," Harriet said. "Now you want him to hold your hand?"

"Don't be stupid, Potter-"

"H-harriet isn't the one being stupid," Asteria said, then looked away when Malfoy startled.

Harriet was extremely proud of her, but decided she'd tell her later. She patted her hand instead, smiling.

"And what happened to that other fellow? The one who fell into the river," Malfoy said. "And the one who jumped in after you - Stubby? What are you doing suddenly showing up with Sirius Black-"

"Sirius was Stubby. He was Polyjuiced he just. . ." If Malfoy didn't know about Padfoot, she wasn't telling him. ". . . lost his top-up, and it wore off in the river."

"That was stupid of him," Malfoy said indignantly.

"It's called an accident, Malfoy," she said, annoyed. "Like the one that landed you in the bloody catacombs."

"If he's on a rescue mission, he should be better at what he's doing. We had to get ourselves out of the cave!"

"I seem to remember taking out a pack of thugs for you - untying you, feeding you a sandwich - sorry, I ran out," she said to Asteria, who only smiled and shook her head.

"And now I have to keep company with this thieving, stinking, kidnapping lout," Malfoy said, waving a hand at Dung, who seemed to have decided the best option was steady silence. Or perhaps it was the Body Bind curse keeping him quiet. Oops.

She de-hexed him. He took several gulping breaths, like there had been some pressure on his lungs.

"What did you do that for!" Malfoy said accusingly.

Don't hex him, DON'T hex him. "He's bloody well tied up, leave off!"

"Good! He had me tied up, when he was planning to sell me off to please his thug of a boss. And what did he need to sell me for, when he had this?" he asked, lifting the locket.

Harriet had to admit it was a fair question: the locket was expensive-looking, gold with a glittering emerald 'S.'

"I'm sorry," Dung gasped, "I didn't mean no harm, it were only an idea-"

"Somehow, I think you're lying." Malfoy started twisting the chain as Sirius had done; Dung stared up at him with wide eyes.

"Knock it off, Malfoy," Harriet said sharply.

He only sneered at her. "Going to put me in my place, then, Potter?"

Harriet narrowed her eyes. Malfoy didn't look away. His eyes were almost all pupil in the firelight, only a thin ring of silver round the rim. A sharp darkness limned his face. . . and a whisper shivered through her, like the sibilant hiss of a cold wind through black trees. Something thrummed between them, a pulse that sent some feeling, black and vaporous, growing, unfurling, curling out of her-

"H-harriet?" Asteria's hand clamped on her shoulder.

Harriet jerked, heart hammering, shaking all over; Malfoy dropped the locket and fell backwards on his bum. Even Dung was gaping.

"What-" he wheezed. "What-"

"It's that thing!" Asteria clung to Harriet, pointing a shaking finger at the locket. "It's got some curse on it, it must have, Draco was acting so strange when he touched it-"

"A curse?" Dung yelped. "Get it orf!"

"If it's cursed I'm not touching it again!" Malfoy scrambled up, shooting to the other side of the fire. "That was-I don't know what that was, but it was creepy!"

"Oh, for-" Harriet said impatiently. "Accio locket!"

The locket stayed where it was around Dung's neck. He twisted his head to stare at it.

"Sometimes things are spelled so they can't be Summoned," Malfoy said uneasily, instead of making fun of her shoddy spellcasting. He must've really been rattled.

"Fine." She leaned over Dung, and ignoring the whisper of nervousness and maybe something else (not something else, just do it) she grabbed the locket and pulled the chain over his head, then dropped it on the ground. The urge to wipe her hand on her trousers was unpleasantly strong.

Asteria crept up next to her. Draco shuffled a little closer, and Dung wriggled himself into a sitting position. They all stared at the eerie gold thing lying in the dirt.

"That's Slytherin's symbol," Malfoy said quietly.

When Harriet glanced at Asteria, she nodded. "It's all over the common room."

They all looked at Dung. He squirmed.

"I found it at-" He coughed and wheezed. "At-oh, you know! That-"

It was like he couldn't say it, but why. . .

Grimmauld Place. It was under Fidelius; he couldn't name it with Malfoy and Asteria there.

"All right, I get it," Harriet said. "So you did steal it."

"It were only being thrown out," he said pleadingly. "I thought, this looks valuable, I can fence it - only when I put it on, for some reason I didn't want to get rid of it. . ." He shuddered and huddled in his ropes. "She's right, it's gort to be cursed. Me, wanting to keep something like that? The Malfoy kid's right, I coulder sold it off and been clear of Radigan now!"

"You're lucky it didn't do anything worse than that," Harriet said angrily. "When Sirius gets back-"

"He's back." They all jumped as he came striding out of the trees. "Taking you two back up to the house now. Holly-berry, you'll stay here with our associate."

She figured he meant Snape, particularly by the way he sneered it. Of course, Malfoy and Asteria would think he meant Dung.

"Thank you," Asteria whispered, pressing Harriet's jacket back into her hands. When she leaned in to hug Harriet, she said in an even lower voice, "Be careful of that locket, Harriet. I don't know what's in it, but it's dangerous."

Harriet nodded her understanding. "I'm glad you're okay."

Asteria smiled, but it vanished when she look at Sirius, standing a few paces away.

"He's not really a mass murderer," Harriet said in a low voice. "Only an escaped convict."

Asteria tried a brave smile that time, and accepted his arm to Apparate.

"C'mon, brat," Sirius said to Malfoy, who was hanging back. "Or I'll leave you out here."

"I have a name," Malfoy muttered, but he shuffled over and let Sirius take his arm.

"Second star to the right and straight on till morning." Sirius cut a smile at Harriet and Apparated.

Snape was out of the trees as soon as they'd vanished with a crack. The top buttons of his shirt were still torn off; he mustn't have noticed, and Harriet wondered why she had to. There was also a rip at the shoulder of his jacket, which she hadn't spotted before.

"You and Sirius weren't off fighting again, were you?"

"We were hardly gone long enough for a good brawl," he said coldly, glaring down at Dung. "And no one's said what you're doing here, Fletcher. Austria is a very unlikely place to find you."

It was hardly small talk; Snape's eyes were boring into Dung, who clearly wanted to burrow into the ground as far as he could get. She remembered Snape digging into the heads of Fink and Nottle and was quite sure she was far too tired to prevent a homicide if he learned what Dung had done. They needed a distraction.

"He was wearing this." She pointed her foot at the locket lying on the grass. The firelight glinted off its face in a funny way, but she couldn't tell how. Maybe it was just her imagination, an echo of that dark binding . . . thing. "Asteria thinks it's cursed."

Snape had taken one look at the locket and sharpened all over. He was already crouching next to it when she added the last, and he cut a glance at her.

"That's Slytherin's symbol," he said with a tinge of surprise.

Dung yelped and tipped forward; Snape had dragged him forward with some spell like a hand twisted in his collar. "Where did you get this?"

"Sirius' place! It were just being thrown out, nobody wanted it!"

Snape released him with disgust; he fell over on his face, just missing the locket.

"You could all be kinder, you know," she snapped, hauling Dung up and propping him against the rock.

"Of course," Snape sneered, "because kindness is my middle name."

"What's your first name," she said under her breath, "Never-heard-of-it?"

Snape gave her a look that said he'd heard that, but for some reason he chose not to reply. He used a spell to raise the locket in the air and passed his wand over it several times, in different formations, saying nothing, but his frown growing deeper, until it had almost set his face in stone.

She sat on the rock beside Dung, waiting. She wouldn't get anything out of Snape while he was busy. Had Sirius got Asteria and Malfoy back to the abbey-castle yet? She hoped he'd remembered to Polyjuice back, or they'd have a house full of screaming Malfoy relatives.

"Miss Greengrass was righter than she knew," Snape said, popping Harriet's waking nightmare of Austrian Aurors chasing Sirius through the woods.

"What's it cursed with?"

"I cannot tell." His scowl creased with vexation; she was surprised he'd admit it. He'd been surprising her a lot tonight. "But there's certainly something very Dark. And you were wearing this?" he demanded of Dung, who shrank back.

"I didn't do no harm!"

"Allow me to doubt you," Snape said. Harriet would, too; Dung had been ready to sell Draco and Asteria to pay off a criminal debt. If he'd been wearing the locket when she'd been abducted by Fink and Nottle (which seemed likely; could have been a good reason for him to flee England once he knew Dumbledore was after him for abandoning his watchpost, too), he could have told them where to find her for the same reason.

But she wasn't going to tell Snape; he'd explode and take Dung with him. She'd float the idea to Dumbledore when she saw him again, and let him decide.

Snape had pulled the little velvet bag out of his inside coat pocket, the one she'd seen him taking money from on the trip. It was old-fashioned and rather girly, at least by modern standards; she wondered if it was some family heirloom. Using his wand, he dropped the locket inside and cinched the neck closed.

"It won't hurt you if it's in there?" she asked doubtfully. "Even if you're carrying the bag?"

"The bag has some charms to prevent that sort of thing - though I certainly won't be prolonging it." He stowed the bag away and stood. "Now if Black will return to inflict us with his presence, we can get on and leave this miserable place behind us."

"Are we taking the trains back?"

"I have another method in mind," he said inscrutably.

He paced round the clearing, saying nothing more. The firelight and shadows tracked across his face as he walked back and forth. Combining with the closed-off grimness of his expression, it was an almost sinister sight. Only she felt none of the pull, that sibilant affinity between her and Malfoy as they'd fought over the locket, like a chord had been struck far below the ability of human ears to hear.

She shivered, tucking up the collar of her jacket. She should tell Snape about that.

But later. She didn't fancy Dung listening in.

Only. . . he was snoring.

"Honestly," she said in disgust, getting up from the rock. She picked a place by the fire and hung her hands over it to warm them.

"He doesn't deserve your kindness."

Snape's voice made her jump again, though it wasn't loud and she hadn't forgot he was there; it was more the sudden coldness of it.

"It's not about deserving," she said, watching the fire turn the tips of her fingers translucent. "Or maybe it is. I dunno, it's -people shouldn't be treated like they don't matter, like they're disposable."

Snape didn't say anything, only moved closer to the fire and stood with his arms folded, his eyes tracking across the dark trees and the rock face. Harriet tucked her hands beneath her legs, watching the fire. . . and Snape.

"I felt something, when Malfoy was holding the locket." She darted a look at Dung, but he snored on.

Snape's eyes cut toward her, the firelight reflected in two bright dashes. "You felt something?"

"Yeah, like. . . something inside me was trying to get out." She folded her legs to her chest and hugged her knees. "Like it heard something it wanted. . . I dunno. But it was bloody creepy."

He was silent, watching her. When she met his eye, he looked away. He raised one hand to his mouth, pressing his thumb against his lip. "And what was Draco's reaction?"

"Like he heard it too. . . Asteria said he'd been acting funny when he touched it - in the catacombs, I guess. And he was acting funny when he grabbed it out here. Nastier. Only when he let go, he'd been freaked out by it too."

Snape was tracing his finger along his lower lip. Something about it was hypnotic, but a completely different hypnosis than she'd felt from the locket. It was. . .

A crack in the trees made her jump. Sirius came striding into the clearing, the curly-haired stranger again, but familiar in his wolfish smile. Dung started awake with a snort.

"I miss anything?" Sirius asked. "Was Sniv being charming?"

"I'd really like to find someplace with a bed," Harriet said, getting to her feet. "And sleep for a week."

"Your wish is my command." Sirius held out a hand and helped her up.

"Yes," said Snape. "A hotel would be my choice."

"What're we doing there?" Sirius asked, as Harriet said, "Really?"

"Really." Snape's face was inscrutable again, though almost, somehow, triumphant. "I'm going to call Dumbledore."

A/N: i was looking for an exact description of the locket in canon, and yep it's gold. i had to read it twice to be sure. i guess our boy slytherin was into fancy things and despite being his house colors, silver just didn't have the same panache. (or maybe godric gave it to him ha hA)

also, i apologize if you felt like a ping-pong ball this chapter. one of my goals as a writer is to continue to stretch my boundaries and keep on growing, and i think this is the first time i had so many characters involved in a scene this long? it was fun to write but idk how easy it is to read :x

a sharp reader pointed out that this is my 100th chapter (if you add the 92 from TNER to the 8 from NJE). here's to us! *toasts you all*