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Chapter 14
Potter Part I
With a practiced flick of his wand Severus Snape cast an Alohomora, gaining access to the back entrance of Number Four Privet Drive. The tall, thin wizard warily made his way through the dark, empty kitchen into a sitting room. He found his way to the stairs, which would lead him to the upstairs bedrooms.
Snape found himself unsettled by the familiarity of the house, having seen it during Potter's Occlumency training. The man stopped briefly to examine a small square of a door that recessed into the side of the stairway. He remembered the doorway and cupboard beyond from Potter's mind. The boy had been put in there as punishment from what Severus had been able to piece together. Snape was reminded hauntingly of the tiny attic crawl space where his own madman of a muggle sire would send him with assurances that he would never amount to anything.
Severus shook himself free of such thoughts as he silently mounted the stairs. His first order of business was to find Potter and Draco and see to it that they were both safe. Although, Snape felt somewhat inclined to murder The-Boy-Who-Lived, for his annoying Gryffindor stupidity. More than once during the evening, Snape toyed with the fantasy of retrieving Gryffindor's sword for his coming interview with the boy. He considered it as he saw the Dark Lord off to the new hideout, convinced Death Eaters as to their master's speedy recovery, intimidated those who would use his weakness to their advantage, and cringed at the thought of how very many things could have gone wrong with Potter's stunt.
The first door to the to right at the top of the stairs revealed an extremely untidy room. The shelving was filled with muggle electronic gadgetry. Clothing littered the floor along with magazines and crisps wrappers, the Potions Master noted distastefully. A talking head babbled silently from a muggle television screen, and tiny space ships zipped around a similar screen that Snape knew was a computer. Against one wall, a rather large form snored loudly from a twin bed. The form's size made clear this was not Potter's room. It must be that of the boy's cousin, the one who liked to play at Harry hunting, Snape recalled from the memories. Potter's own personal Marauder, Snape thought with a dispassionate smirk.
Snape wrinkled his nose in disgust as the large boy shifted positions and passed gas loudly, as well as made a distinctly pig-like snuffling noise. The wizard closed the door hastily, pursing his lips as he tried the room across the hall. This room was orderly, but modest, and felt like a bit of a cell. The small window above the child-sized wooden desk complimented the effect. The obviously lumpy single bed stood empty against one wall.
This was Potter's room. Snape knew both from memory, and the decidedly magical energy that permeated the space. However, he had no idea where Potter was, let alone where he had taken Draco. Standing at the threshold, Snape frowned deeply, and wondered if the boy would have risked taking Malfoy to Arabella Figg's. After taking several uncertain steps into the room, the magical energy heightened, and the room changed. Snape's eyes narrowed as he found himself in a comfortable little sitting room, with a matching couch and love seat. He realized abruptly that the room must have been transfigured and disillusioned.
A small kitchenette sat off to the side, and there were three doors surrounding the siting area. Straight ahead, on a small table, was another muggle television set with the same talking head that was on in the large boy's bedroom. To the side and behind the T.V., one door was open which allowed Snape to see the empty bedroom beyond. The walls were adorned with Quidditch posters. The Chuddley Cannons, Snape decided, due to the over-abundance of orange.
A tall, lank figure stretched out on the couch. Snape recognized Ronald Weasley from the head of hair that very nearly matched the posters, and rested comfortably on two plaid throw pillows. From the gentle rise and fall of the boy's chest, Snape could tell he was sleeping, and deduced the empty room was his.
Quietly stepping away from the boy, Snape silently opened the door just to the right of the T.V. This room belonged to a female. There was a distinct frill about the bed coverings, and a soft pink night light glowed from the open door of the loo. The mass of bushy hair that peeked from atop the lacy comforter told him the figure was probably that of Miss Granger. Snape remembered now that Albus had said the trio were staying at Potter's home. The dark-haired wizard's frown deepened. He wasn't confident they were completely safe here after what Potter had pulled at Voldemort's lair.
With only one door remaining, Snape was fairly certain that he had found Potter's room. When the locked door failed to respond to his Alohomora, Snape realized the room must be warded. After several attempts to disarm it ended in frustration, Severus decided to employ the same method Albus informed him Potter had used to find Snape in Voldemort's hideout. Placing his hand around the Angelth at his neck, Severus silently bade it find its twin. The magical energy around him began to ripple, and as it reached a kind of crescendo, he found himself standing in front of the sleeping form of Harry Potter.
The older wizard turned in relief to find Draco who lay across from Potter, on the only bed in the room. As Snape let out a ragged breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, he ran a medical diagnostic with his wand. Snape could easily detect the areas where Potter had done a competent job of tending Draco's injuries. The blond boy had already suffered far worse than this in his service to the Dark Lord, Snape reminded himself, as he struggled to squash any doubts as to the boy's full recovery.
Potter was stretched out in a chair, a book opened to a chapter on wandless healing magic lay in his lap. He looked exhausted but unharmed. Snape was relieved to see that the lightening-shaped scar on his forehead no longer bled, as the older wizard clinically pushed aside a mass of messy black hair. Severus took a moment to run a diagnostic on Potter as well. Possession by Voldemort, along with the wandless healing, had diminished the boy's strength. A magic replenisher potion of the type Snape should have suggested brewing for the Dark Lord, but had not, should easily stimulate the boys magic when he awoke. Withholding the potion from the Dark Lord would buy them precious little time, however, as Bella and Wormtail were to have kidnapped a healer from St. Mungos on their way to the new chambers.
Severus had made quick work of establishing a leadership role among the Death Eaters after Potter's departure. Under the guise of helping his master, Snape had ordered all the Dark Lord's followers to leave and not return to the encampment as security had been breached. He bade them see to the security of their own homes from the Order and Aurors, and await the Dark Lord's summons. They had obeyed, and Voldemort had been grateful.
The Dark Lord's followers had been hard to control. There were those who briefly entertained thoughts of overthrow, seeing the Dark Lord weakened thus. Most were still fearful, however, and claimed to want reparations. Proclaiming their love, many of them offered to go after Potter immediately.
"We'll bring you his head, My Lord," they cried lustily, determined to curry favor once Voldemort was fully recovered.
But Severus had thrashed the ensuing chaos into submission. Displaying magical power that he rarely allowed come to the fore, he cowed those who thought to overthrow Voldemort. Few save Albus knew the depths of Severus Snape's magical prowess. Snape allowed a portion of it to show with the would-be assassins that night, just as grief and fear had made him do so with Potter on the night Albus died. He had slapped the boy's hexes aside as though they were an annoyance of little consequence. The-Boy-Who-Lived was a potent wizard in his own right, but not yet so powerful as Snape or Albus before him.
Potter's skills were to have increased greatly the past school year when Severus began teaching DADA for the main purpose of covertly beginning the boy's training. But as Snape was quick to point out, in all the time he had known Potter, he had never managed to teach him anything.
However, Snape had to grudgingly admit, Potter instinctively knew a thing or two no one had to teach him. Much as Potter had with the Dark Lord that night, making him howl in pain, Snape began attacking his fellow Death Eaters through their minds. He assaulted them with feelings of uncertainty, paranoia, and fear. Severus sent into their minds images of their own torturous deaths at the hands of an angry, powerful Dark Lord. He insinuated himself into their bodies as well, causing hearts to beat impossibly loud, bowels to loosen, and throats to parch.
To those who would betray Voldemort and those who would avenge him alike, Snape had menacingly explained that the Dark Lord was under the temporary effects of a curse Potter had placed on Nagini. Snape warned everyone, with a dangerously forbidding countenance, that he would personally see to it that the effects were short-lived. He cautioned them all to remember that Potter was to be disposed of by the Dark Lord, lest they wish to incur their master's wrath when he had recovered.
Snape made a production of seeming concerned and protective of his master. Voldemort would not allow anyone else save Bella and the rodent close. They looked on with jealousy and anger as Snape offered several useless potions before the Dark Lord departed to his new refuge.
"These may help with the curse my Lord," Snape assured Voldemort with false earnestness.
"I do not believe Potter cursed Nagini, my Severusss," the Dark Lord hissed weakly. "I think he may have killed her."
"Yeah," Pettigrew put in stupidly. "We don't know if it was a curse at all Master," the rodent's voice sounded more petulant than anything, Snape noted with some amusement. The rat was trying hard to reinsert his nose up the Dark Lord's bum, but Severus got in ahead of him.
"I beg your forgiveness, my Lord," Severus cut in smoothly, while carefully occluding his memories of Nagini's death from his mind. "But I believe Potter holds her hostage for future leverage, even as he holds young Malfoy after abducting him before our very eyes." Snape had been steadfast and angry in espousing his theory that Potter had kidnapped Draco.
"Neither is Malfoy a hostage, Severussss," Voldemort insisted with a weakly impatient gesture. "I saw it in Potter's mind."
"You were in the brat's mind, my master?" Severus asked in false adoration. "How clever of you. What did you see?" Snape continued as though oblivious to the fact that Potter had severely bested the Dark Lord. "Is that when you threw your head back and howled in anger?" He asked this in a deviously innocent tone that would have done both Potter and Draco proud. His tone convinced the Dark Lord that he believed him to have howled in anger, instead of pain as was the actual case.
"It was quite clever my lord," Bella fawned in agreement, frustrated to garner some of the favor the Dark Lord seemed to be lavishing on Snape for herself.
"I do not agree with your assssesssssment, dear Severusss," Voldemort had hissed fondly, ignoring Bella. "But I am convinced of your loyalty."
"If I am wrong then these potions will do no good, Master, but they will certainly do no harm." Snape said pressing the vials into Bella's hand and giving Wormtail a pointed look. Both gave him ones of pure loathing in return. Bella and Pettigrew were to accompany Voldemort to his new hideout. Snape was to see to it his own sanctuary had not been breached as he had bidden the other Death Eaters to do.
"I await your summons, Master," Severus whispered in a falsely fervent voice while bestowing an adoring kiss on the Dark Lord's hand. "He is to have those potions at once Bella," Snape ordered. The last thing he saw as the three departed was the ugly witch's disdainful scowl.