Chapter Eighteen
Hermione
Snape left the warden's apartments the moment Lucius and Bella drew wands. This was going to be a fight to the death and he wanted no part in it. One of them would have tried to drag him into it and he didn't want to side with either. They were formidable and it was going to be a nasty fight.
He found his way to the dungeons and into the fight occurring there. He now stared at Lupin and the three girls who were with him. Somehow the others had gotten hold of a portkey and they were now gone. He saw no way to follow the Potter boy, his primary charge. And as always, he adapted quickly to the situation and was already leading the small group back through the winding labyrinth of Azkaban's prison.
"We have no hope of leaving the island," he told Lupin. "We cannot survive. There are too many of us and the hounds will be on us soon." He was speaking metaphorically but knew Lupin understood. He was the only one with a wand and the going was already difficult.
Snape already knew the werewolf was not pleased with his company and was certainly not pleased he spoke so openly.
"Really Severus, as long as we walk, and talk, and breath I think there is hope," Lupin growled. He was at the back and pushing the girls before him. They came to a junction where a primeval sort of light illuminated their faces.
Snape was impressed with what he saw. There were no tears, no simpering adolescent whimperings from the females. They stood before him, grim-yes-but resolute. Lupin looked at them and then at him and there was a look of satisfaction there. Maybe, he began to think and then pushed the thought from his mind. No, he told himself, there is no escape and probably no survival.
He, more than anyone, knew the way before them was almost impossible.
"You must do exactly as I say," Severus said. " Did anyone come away with a wand?"
They looked at each other and Hermione sighed. "I had Dumbledore's wand in my hand and I gave it to Harry so I could help Mrs. Weasley. We didn't have time..."
Dumbledore's wand, Snape thought. Now Potter has it. "We'll collect several more wands along the way," he snapped, ignoring Hermione and turning to Ginny. "This girl..."
"Ginny...Ginny Weasley," Ginny said drying. "That's my name Professor."
Yes, Snape thought. He knew the name. How many years had he been bedeviled by the Weasley family. He looked into her face and gritted his teeth and continued, "I must transfigure you. You are not of age and we can more easily carry you along. It will make us less conspicuous."
Lupin stared at him and then looked at Ginny. He nodded and lowered his eyes.
"Transfigured?!" she said hotly. "I can fight!" She then turned to Tonks and Hermione. Both looked at her sympathetically. "Hermione? Tonks?" she pleaded.
"Snape is right, Ginny. You won't understand this until you are older but it will be safer for you." Lupin gulped and reached for Snape's wand. "Allow me."
Snape willingly gave over the wand. He had never been good at transfiguration and remembered vividly asking Lily to begin the transformation on herself. He watched now as Lupin waved the wand and the red-haired girl's body melted down into a very small and very wary red-tailed fox.
Hermione was the first to bend and stroke the magnificent red fur. "It'll be alright Ginny," she whispered.
Snape took the wand back, surprised Lupin had not insisted on keeping it. "We must move now... and quickly. There is an acromantula lair nearby."
"What about, Lucius?" Lupin asked, looking back into the tunnel of the staircase and then at Snape.
"I left Lucius and Bellatrix Lestrange battling it out over two Horcruxes," Snape said coolly. "Hopefully, it will keep them occupied for some time. No one will dare interfere to inform them that his prisoners have escaped. But we must be out of the prison soon. It is our only chance."
He once again proceeded up the stairs with the wand lit and pointed ahead of him. A werewolf, an Auror who is barely out of training, a girl who knows nothing except what she reads in books; and a fox. Yes, we are in trouble, he thought.
...
Harry was on his feet and rushing back over to the Triwizard's cup that had dropped in the middle of the small group. He turned to Arthur Weasley. "We have to go back. Make it transport me back!" His chest was heaving with the effort to not shout it out.
Arthur Weasley shook his head at him. His face revealed his own agony and horror as he became aware of who had arrived and who had been left behind. "I can't Harry. We can't go back. They are lost to us. They are already lost to us." The words came out in an agonized muffled cry.
"Do you know what you're saying?!" Harry gasped. He looked at the faces around him.
"Molly get them into the woods. Find cover now!" Mr. Weasley whispered to her and pushed her. She was not responding.
"I've killed her Arthur. I've killed my own daughter," Molly wailed in grief.
Mr. Weasley reached out and punched Fred in the chest. "Get under cover! Go. Take your mother. Keep her quiet." As a group they began to move towards the cover of the Forbidden Forest.
Arthur Weasley and Ron were left behind with Harry standing exposed in the middle of the Quidditch pitch. The stands that served to hold the audience were empty and dark and the flags, normally flying in each quadrant to define the areas for the four houses, were now absent. It was unnaturally calm and growing darker.
"I can't make a portkey, Harry," Mr. Weasley said quietly. "You know who was there when we transported out. Even if you could go back, you would be caught, and it would do nothing. We can't help them."
Harry was shaking violently. "You don't understand. Voldemort can't kill me but he can kill everyone who means anything to me. I might as well be there and die with them! He's taken it all away!"
Ron stepped up and took him by the arm. He was also shaking and white-faced. "Dad is right. That's my sister and...Hermione... and my friends. We can't go back. I would do it if I could. I'd take your place if I could, but it can't be done!"
Harry glared at them. Magic! he thought. It's only good for when it's not important. He looked down at the Triwizard's cup and kicked it with all his strength. He forced himself to look up at them calmly. It took everything he had.
He saw there were dark objects in the deepening night sky circling the castle and flying in their direction. Voldemort was in Hogwarts. He couldn't be killed by the dark wizard but he could be killed by any one of the wizards guarding him; and he wanted to get to Voldemort; he wanted to get to him very badly indeed.
Arthur Weasley saw the figures above at the same time. "Run for it!" he whispered and grabbed his son's sleeve. Ron looked back and then ran for the trees. Harry stood on the Quidditch pitch alone and then ran in the opposite direction toward the castle.
...
Nagini was smelling the rat even as it chewed on the grasses near the entrance. She knew the smell. She had not been successful in her hunting and she was hungry. The wizard always drained her of energy. There had been dark days when he had milked her so he could survive. It had been unpleasant, even painful. It was still unpleasant. She knew somewhere in her small reptilian brain she carried something that belonged to him.
She enjoyed being outside in her natural environment. Her master no longer needed her as much or called to her. When she was near him she could sense the changes taking place. She would not normally allow a male of her species to remain at her side. Her natural instinct was to mate with him and then leave. But this mate was unlike others, he was partly human and still had horrible control of her. She had never been frightened before and the feeling was unfamiliar.
She was, therefore, always a little more quick to rile, a little more aggressive then she normally would be when carrying her eggs. And she was always hungry. The rat was a little worn and a little old and the missing toe was the clue he was special to her master.
She licked the air with her tongue and tasted his scent and moved cautiously through the grass in his direction.
...
Snape knelt and the others followed suit. They had made it to the trail and it was now growing dark. Snape felt some mild relief. The air was still torturously hot from the late July sun and they were in the rocky gully that footed the fortress.
"There are many things that will kill you on this island, natural and foreign." Severus said quietly. "We can use these things to help us or they can be our end." He pointed at the shrubbery and the waxy flowers growing in the shade. They were barely visible in the waning light. "That is scarlet trumpet," he whispered and looked at Hermione. She gasped and drew back away from it. He nodded, pleased she understood.
"You are our guide, Severus," Lupin said huffing from exertion. He had taken several hits and was hurt, weary and glad to turn over the responsibility as leader. "We have already agreed."
Snape nodded and without arrogance waved his hand over the land laying before them and said, "I know this land, I know what Malfoy will set loose on us. If we want to survive you must do exactly what I say and when I say it and you must not hesitate."
Tonks was watching the terrain but leaned slightly to hear his words. She nodded and chewed on something so voraciously it looked like a wad of gum. Hermione was wide-eyed and watching Snape, and Lupin was anxious.
Snape understood immediately what he was thinking and voiced it, "You think I am wasting time Lupin? But I'm not. We must go very slowly and stay out of sight, not run headlong into them. They will be looking all along the path, there is no other way." Snape saw the red fox join them and sit in their circle. " We need to use what is at our disposal." He pulled a plant from the nearby growth and broke the stem in half. "We have two wands; that's not enough."
Like Hermione he had liberated a wand from one of the front entrance guards and had pushed the other over the side. Lupin had caught himself from shouting at him in his attempt to keep Hermione and Tonks from seeing the brutal death.
"When you rub the juice from this plant on your skin it will glow in the dark. The Inferi hate light and will not touch you. They will come out of the pools that line the path in some areas." Snape touched a long tendril inching its way towards his boot. It jerked back at the tiny spark on the tip of his wand. "What is this, Miss Granger?'
"Devil's Snare," Hermione said quietly.
"Yes, once again, you are correct," Snape said and rose. "If we are separated then you must remember to think of these things. There are traps that line the path and creatures..." They all heard the distant roar of the dragon flying overhead.
"We understand Severus, now we need to move out of this area. We are too exposed." Lupin paced back and forth, gripping the wand in his hand nervously.
Snape whirled in his own tracks and moved silently through the shadows of the brush. He was so stealthy they lost sight of him almost immediately.
"He was like that Remus," Tonks said and brushed past him. "I followed the man for two weeks and never could get close enough to touch him. He's good, really, really good." She turned back once from following in his tracks. "If we can stay with him, he'll get us out of this."
The red fox followed her into the shadows and left Hermione and Remus staring after.
Hermione stepped over the Devil's Snare tendril and reached down to pluck another plant, the copy of the one Snape had pulled. She tucked it into her robes and followed with Lupin covering their trail with his wand.
They moved quietly and their trackers were noisy. Snape stopped, listened and guided them around a group of wizards talking in a clearing.
Later, as they moved swiftly through the dark, Snape did not hear the sound of the vampire before it was actually on him. Immediately, Hermione yanked Lupin's wand from his hand, rushed over and gave it a complicated whip-like shake. She transfigured the creatures needle-like fangs into comedic muggle dentures that clacked spasmodically in his mouth, and then not satisfied, added metal braces wired together to silence the noise. She quickly wove a complicated web of fine white threads from the wand wrapping the creature in a cocoon, much like a mummy in its wrappings, and then stood back and calmly handed the wand back to Lupin.
They all stared at her, particularly Snape who had been rescued by her quick thinking.
"What is that binding him? Snape finally asked, staring at her with a mixture of surprise and confusion.
"It's dental floss," Hermione said staring down at the vampire who lay wriggling on the ground at her feet. "My parents are dentists and it was the first thing that came to mind."
Lupin broke out in a tiny hysterical laugh, spinning in place, wand up and staring in the night sky.
"What is a dentist?" Snape asked, solemnly, as if they were a type of great wizard.
"Enough! This conversation must take place later," Lupin said quickly and moved off into the dark.
Snape stood staring at her for the space of a heartbeat and then also waved for them to move behind Lupin.
It was at least twenty minutes before they stopped again. They could all hear the howls of the werewolf men following them. "Fenrir!" Snape hissed and he could see Lupin turn to him and step in close to whisper.
"He'll be with others of my kind," Lupin said softly. "I'll draw them off. They haven't transformed yet but they will smell us. If I leave you they will follow my scent. He wants me more than he wants any of you."
Snape nodded and held his breath to listen. He spoke when he could hear them moving away from them. "There is a chasm..."
"I know of it," Lupin interrupted. "How do you cross it? A bridge?"
Snape shook his head. There was barely enough light to see each other and he spoke as quietly as he could, "An incantation. Walk across. Have no fear there will be something under your foot when you do."
Lupin dissolved into the dark and Tonks moved down the trail ahead of Snape and Hermione. Snape quickly gestured for Hermione to follow. They were now trotting along in the dark over rough terrain with a pack of werewolves and their chained wolves on their trail. Wizards flew overhead on thestrals and threw globes of light out with their wands to cascade down and light small areas underneath them.
Snape studied the moon as it came up over the horizon. It's going to be dark enough, he decided. They easily avoided the circles of light cast by the flying wizards overhead, but it was harder to see the traps. He was becoming more confident in Tonks. He had watched her for weeks while she thought she was following him. She was good but he had never lost sight of her which meant she was not good enough. Still, he allowed her to move ahead and he ran alongside the Granger girl.
She was winded but still moving and on guard. He was satisfied with her quick thinking and stopped, pulled her back and handed her the wand. "Follow Tonks. I'm going to back-trail and see how close the hunters are." She nodded and took it from his hand without speaking.
He spoke again, "You are near a chasm and it is deep. Have no fear, just cross it. When the time comes step out and you will find a walkway under your foot." She nodded again. He stared at her for a moment. He could not read her face in the dark and it made him uncomfortable. Snape always liked to learn what he could from a person's expressions.
"You saved me," he said quickly. "Why?"
"We are in this together," she answered calmly. "I have never lost faith in you, Mr. Snape. Not...not ...really even if I said I didn't trust you. I didn't mean it." She remained perfectly still and there was a quality in her voice...something so familiar. It was like Lily's, stubborn, determined and self-assured. In the deepening darkness he forgot himself for a moment and thought of stepping in just a little closer so he could smell the scent of her hair, and the perfume of her skin.
And then, with a start, he realized who stood before him and that he now owed her a debt. He turned on his heel and melted into the dark and she watched the darkness envelope him. She knew that both he and Lupin were buying them time, possibly sacrificing themselves for her and Tonks and Ginny.
She and Tonks reached the chasm and she dropped to her knees and peered over the side in horror. "Tonks?" she gasped, holding herself back in fear.
The young woman beside her had reached the gorge before her and was staring down into it and then across to the safety of the other side. "I see it, Hermione." She looked over. "I know it looks awful..."
She didn't finish. Hermione burst out in a rough choked laugh, "Awful! That's an understatement, Tonks. It's a nightmare." Something touched her sleeve and she caught herself from screaming just in time to realized it was the cold wet nose of the red fox. "Ginny!"
Tonks rubbed at her own nose and smeared more dirt on her face. They had flailed and crawled and run through branches and wet brush, had dropped and run along boggy, muddy clearings. "We're gonna be exposed, Hermione," she said, seriously studying the area. "I trust what Snape said about walking across, although...well..."
Hermione had a hand on the fox and one on the ground and looked down. The area was ablaze with the light from molten lava spewing out of crevices. The heat and steam rose up into their faces and mixed with the sweat and grime. "I know what you mean, Tonks."
She ran her fingers into the soft pelt of the fox and then looked again at the other girl, her face a bright orange-red lit from the fires below. It was also grimy. And then it hit her. "Tonks?"
"Yeah," the woman answered.
"Can you change your skin color?" Hermione asked.
Tonks looked down at her and nodded. "Why?"
"I'm going to rub more dirt on my face," Hermione said grabbing for soil around her and throwing it on herself and in her hair. "We can camouflage ourselves."
"What's a camouflage?" Tonks said reaching for some of the leaves and dirt.
"It's a muggle thing. You cover yourself with this stuff," she showed her the leaves. "Put it all over and then you change your color. I'll change the color of our clothes to match the area. We'll be invisible from the air because we'll look like the ground. I'm going to wrap Ginny in my robes and carry her across. As a fox she won't dare follow us. She won't know it's safe to cross."
"I can transfigure you, Hermione," Tonks pointed at the wand Hermione carried. "Although, I'm not very good with humans."
Hermione stared at her, raising an eyebrow. Tonks had a reputation for being clumsy if not downright dangerous no matter how good her intentions. Hermione had already thought it through. "Thanks Tonks, but I'd rather try this. Besides you can't carry both of us." She had already covered herself and was gently wrapping the struggling fox in her cloak. "Go ahead of me now, take the wand and wait for me on the other side. I'll follow in a minute."
Tonks nodded and put a foot out, hesitating and then stubbornly planting it down in thin air. She, like others before her, was unsteady on the invisible surface. Once assured it was there, she crouched and ran for the other side.
Hermione waited until the figure disappeared into the vegetation and then stepped out, looking straight ahead. There was a moment of terror until her foot touched the solid invisible ground, and then she began to run. It was at that moment the dragon chose to sweep down through the valley. Its' eyes were sharper than an eagles and it caught sight of her movements just as she made the halfway point.