Chapter 20
Dumbledore barreled down the hall at a run, robes swishing behind him where Harry, Ron and Professor McGonagall were jogging after him. The hall was empty, even for a weekend. No one was there to hear the muttered password (Peach Pucker Pop) or see the four wizards dash behind the stone gargoyle. Dumbledore's office seemed strangely serene in comparison to the urgency which had grasped each of the party.
"Tell Scrimgeour I need to meet with him," Dumbledore said brusquely to the portrait of an old headmaster, who promptly ducked out of his frame to fetch the Minister.
Harry had only a minute to feel impatient before the flames of the hearth burned green and the slouching man himself stepped out of the fire, looking distinctly ruffled.
"What is it, Dumbledore? Has the school been attacked?" His perceptive eyes scanned the room intently, right hand fisted around the brass boar which made up the top of his cane. Its eyes moved around the group as well, but gave an uninterested snuffle and lay still under his grip.
"No, Scrimgeour. But a student has been kidnapped," replied McGonagall in a high voice. She cleared her throat and looked slightly embarrassed.
"What do you mean?"
"She's been kidnapped!" shouted Harry, nevermind that this was the first he'd eveer seen of the new Minister of Magic. "Today, in Hogsmeade, by a Death Eater, I'm sure of it."
"Death Eaters . . ." Scrimgeour's eyes locked fiercely with Harry's, arting up to his forehead only briefly. "Well, my boy," he hissed. "The next show had to start soon, didn't it?" He put one foot into the hearth's ashes and turned to the headmaster. "Keep in touch, Dumbledore. I'll alert a special team of Aurors and we'll see . . ." he nodded vigorously and threw some powder into the flames. "We'll see," he repeated, and then disappeared.
"What?!" exclaimed Harry. "That's it, that's all he's going to do?"
"Did you not hear correctly, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall said, peering down from the glasses perched on the end of her nose. "The Ministry is looking for her now. There's not much we can do, is there?"
"I don't believe him!" Harry seethed. "Why did he believe us so quickly? It's not like the Minister, any Minister to take our word as true. I don't believe he takes us seriously for one second!"
"I understand your concern, Harry," Dumbledore sighed, rubbing his temples with wrinkled hands. "But we are not completely helpless in this." He looked from Harry to Ron and back again, then took a fatigued seat behind his desk. "Let Sirius know, Harry. Use my floo, go to him now but come back quickly. We will wait."
Harry nodded stiffly and moved towards the fireplace. It flickered lime and emerald as he threw in his hand's contents. "12 Grimmauld Place!" he said clearly, before being consumed.
He stepped out of the kitchen fire, spluttering on the other side.
"Harry!" Sirius looked up from a bottle of butterbeer and a tattered book.
"Sirius, it's Hermione!" The other man's face fell as if he'd been shot.
"What are you talking about?"
"She's been kidnapped by a Death Eater, we don't know who, and Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic says the Ministry will look for her but I don't know if I can trust him, and anyway Dumbledore told me to come and tell you first thing, but I -,"
"Shh, Harry, Harry . . ." Sirius tried to calm the boy down. He stood up and put his arm around him, but Harry broke away and started pacing the floor. "Sirius, we don't know what to do." His green eyes were desperate.
"Well let's get back to Hogwarts and talk it through," the older man said abruptly, pulling Harry towards the fire. Before he had a chance to argue the two of them were spinning madly around, only to stop back in Dumbledore's office.
McGonagall gave a small gasp as she saw Sirius Black for the first time in a long while. Hearing his story had made the idea of him unthreatening, but years of believing in his crime had tempered her expectations of this dark, bristling man. He looked especially intimidating now, in the throes of anger.
"Mr. Black!" she gasped.
"Sirius!" exclaimed Dumbledore threateningly. "I told you not to leave Grimmauld place-,"
"Good to see you!" smiled Ron weakly, patting the man on the back.
"- it's for your own safety, for the safety of the Order and for –,"
"Albus," the other man interrupted, "How can you expect that under these circumstances I would submit myself to imprisonment within my own home, and even if this hadn't happened, I-,"
"I thought letting you go to Arthur and Molly's over the summer was lax enough, Sirius, but we can't be taking so many risks, not when Voldemort-,"
"Oh, don't say that out loud!" hissed McGonagall in a reprimanding tone, pressing her hands over her ears.
"- not when Voldemort is practically knocking on our doorstep!"
"Not when a Death Eater has one of your students in his power!" retorted Sirius.
"One of the people closest to Harry has been threatened," said the Headmaster levelly. "I understand why this is a cause of greatest concern to you, but –,"
"What do you know?!" bellowed Sirius. "You don't know the half of it!"
"I'm afraid I do, though I might not approve, she is-,"
"Of course you wouldn't! I wouldn't expect for a second that you would feign to understand love."
"Sirius!" bellowed the older man, standing. His eyes glistened with fury. "Do not accuse me of ignorance. There is much I do not know, but you are being vastly unfair."
"I'm sorry, Albus, I was out of place."
"Yes, you were." The room filled with an uncomfortable silence. Dumbledore seemed lost in thought, and Sirius avoided his eyes. McGonagall was mumbling something under her breath when Ron came to his senses.
"Hey!" bellowed Ron. "Hey!" He waved his arms around frantically. "Where's Harry?" Everyone looked around, but the Boy Who Lived was gone.
While the two men Harry respected most in life had been bickering, Harry slipped out of the room unnoticed and made his way up to the sixth years' dormitory. By the time Sirius had returned to Grimmauld place, cursing his confinement, Harry already had his broom and invisibility cloak in hand. By the time Professor Dumbledore had left for the Ministry to see what the Minister of Magic was really going to do about the situation, Harry was already climbing the stairs to the Astronomy tower. And by the time Professor McGonagall and Ron discovered the fluffed-up pillows under the covers on his bed, he was just a black speck in the afternoon sky.
---
Days passed, and no-one knew where Harry or Hermione could be. Dumbledore had assured himself that the Ministry was quietly making inquiries. Sirius was punching holes in his bedroom. Ron, as the only remaining member of the trio, allowed himself to be submitted to social scrutiny and rumor. It took Draco Malfoy's stage-whisper that the two had eloped like romantic cowards for the red-head to crack. Fortunately, Ron's only injuries were torn robes and bruised knuckles. Draco did not fare so well, but he had theories he cared not to voice about the missing students. Regret and guilt festered in his mind like a pus-filled boil. It was hard to ignore, but he put on a good show.
Snape, however, was doing a little bit more, and saying a whole lot less. Dumbledore was privately investigating the disappearance of Hogwarts' smartest witch, but Snape already knew where she was, and with whom. It didn't take Nicholas Flamel to put two and two together – Lucius' strange inquiry which Snape had almost brushed off as a neurotic whim, and the girl's kidnapping.
It was infuriating for him to visit the man every day and dawdle over tea and sandwiches while Lucius lied to his face, saying that he knew nothing of Hermione's whereabouts, and wasn't that odd, now? Well, the Dark Lord surely wasn't losing any sleep over it, so why should he, Severus?
Of course that sly old spider had her holed up somewhere, subjecting the girl who knows what. Except of course Severus did know. Before the Dark Lord fell, he had witnessed first-hand what Lucius was capable of and what he enjoyed. But for Severus, inaction was safer than action, and he did not want to jeopardize his tenuous position. He knew which side his bread was buttered on – both – and to risk that for one life was absurd.
Was he sincerely cruel? It didn't matter, after all, whose side he was actually loyal to. The point was that either way he would do nothing about this travesty, this violation that he passively watched from the sidelines, feigning ignorance.
He was a beast, and it was his fault she was dying a little more inside, every day.