A/N: The next chapter will take some time, unfortunately. Check out my lifejournal for progress – I solemnly swear I will post more often there…
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Coming for to Carry You Home
"How did it go?" Potter asked once Snape had shrugged off his cloak and helped himself to a piece of bread and cheese.
"The Headmaster demanded intimate knowledge about your past," He answered lightly. "And I refused to give it. The Headmaster wasn't pleased and we parted on a rather cold note. I don't expect invitations to dinner parties in the near future."
"You didn't have to do that, you know?" Potter said quietly.
"I know," Snape answered, for once not bothering with a complicated, refined answer. "But I wanted to. And now stop being sentimental all over me, Potter, or I will have to take another shower. Where's your terror sitter?"
"In the living room," Potter answered, not even reacting to the name Snape had coined for Ayda. "She's decided that she had better look over my possessions and tell me what she wants in case I don't make it. Nobody can say Ayda doesn't believe in planning."
Snape sneered. "That woman is shameless," He said. "No wonder she made it to the top of their hierarchy with that attitude."
Potter grinned. "I believe that happened rather because she's so very good with the knife."
Snape shuddered in an exaggerated manner, wondering at the same time where this sudden sprout of good mood came from.
"Don't remind me!" He said and walked over into the living room, where he found Ayda closely watching a set of leather bound Collected Works of Dickens as if the books were a pair of rabbits she intended to catch.
"I sincerely hope you won't take dinner with us," He greeted her. "You would disturb our work greatly."
She bared her teeth in what remotely resembled a smile. "Nice that you invite me," She answered with a purr. "But I am far too important to sit around with a bunch of weird bachelor wizards. Watch your back, Master Potions master!"
"And you better watch your tea, somebody could lace it with poison," Snape called after her and felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Irritating that she was, the woman did possess a certain charm. Like Moody, Molly Weasley and Dumbledore thrown into a pot and mixed together.
He tried to visualize that thought for a moment, then shuddered again and returned his attention to the bag of potions supplies and the books he had brought with him. Better to start on that refined Pepper Up right now, and to let Potter rest for another hour.
His mind was already on the brewing process when he walked through the kitchen, where Potter was busying himself with whatever muggles did to their sinks.
But the view from the kitchen window banished any thought of potions from his head in a flash of shock.
"Potter," He barked and felt the man's presence by his side in less than a heart beat. It still surprised him how fast he could move.
"Tonks?" Potter whispered, for once real surprise in his voice. "But how did she… You did check all your belongings for tracking spells, didn't you?"
"Of course," Snape sneered. "I am not stupid Potter. I checked everything twice, except for the magical ingredients, of course. Even Dumbledore wouldn't meddle with those…"
His voice broke and faded as he remembered the look of absolute righteousness on the Headmaster's face. Everyone knew that spells and charms could alter the property of magical potions ingredients, even dangerously so. A potion in which they were used could stop working in the way it was intended, or even turn poisonous, which was the reason why Snape himself hadn't tested them. Even Dumbledore wouldn't risk Potter's life that way, unless… unless he was convinced that it was necessary, and could tell himself that the risk was minimal…
Realizing that he had miscalculated badly, Snape cursed under his breath, and without any intention his eyes wandered back to Potter.
"I'll get Tonks, you check the ingredients," The other man decided, and suddenly his tone was that of a leader, so used to commanding and being obeyed that Snape didn't even think before he ripped his bag open and started emptying its contents on the kitchen table.
It was the unicorn hair, the third magical ingredient he checked, and Snape's breath hitched at the thought of what this meddling might have done to the potion. If he had gotten to brewing right away, and Tonks had taken longer to reach the house…
Speaking of Tonks.
He turned around and straightened imperially just as the kitchen door opened and Potter ushered her in.
"The wards are compromised," Potter told him in a tone void of all emotions. "I had to take down the offensive ones since I don't have strength or time to key Tonks in. If anyone was looking for us while Tonks walked up here, they won't have a hard time finding us."
Snape suppressed the acute wish to bang his head against the kitchen wall. He next suppressed the instinct to apologize to Potter – even the thought was ludicrous – and finally reached the one reaction he didn't have to suppress.
"Tonks!" He thundered, not caring that the woman flinched violently under his angry stare. "What the hell do you think you're doing, simply turning up here without any protection? Do you have any idea how risky that was?"
"I don't believe that is very productive, Professor," Potter calmly said, of all things in the world placing a reassuring hand on Tonks' shoulder. "The damage is done, and there is nothing anyone can change about it."
"But… What damage?" Tonks cut in, obviously having understood not a thing. "I just followed that tracking charm Dumbledore asked me to follow – surely there can be no harm in that?"
Snape sighed, wondering whether to feel enraged or simply resigned. "And yet again Gryffindor idiocy has reached a new record height," He remarked icily. "Would you mind switching on your brain, Tonks, or do you only use it on Sundays?"
"Professor," Potter said again, a slight reproach in his voice. "The problem is, Tonks," He then said, turning to petite woman who was sporting violently green hair today. "That, although the Headmaster may not believe it, a certain number of people isn't too pleased with me."
He gracefully ignored Snape's muttered comment that this wasn't surprising at all, since Potter had never been so good at anything as making enemies.
"My house is strongly warded not only to ensure my privacy, but also to keep those who want to harm me and my friends out. Your arrival has activated the wards and thus announced a magical presence. I also had to take down the more active wards in order to protect you, which means that we are out in the middle of nowhere with an unknown number of aggressors heading towards us."
He paused for a moment, letting his eyes travel slowly over the kitchen, all those fine tools he had collected to serve his passion for cooking and baking, and somehow Snape knew that this was the only show of regret and loss he would ever allow himself.
Potter believed this house lost already, Snape realized as he watched him watch his home. Even though nothing might happen, and no one might come, he would never return to live here. It wasn't safe anymore, and the knowledge that the Headmaster's manipulations and Tonks' thoughtlessness had cost Potter his home made the anger rise in him again.
As if sensing what was going on inside him, Potter turned his head towards Snape and gave him a long, pleading look.
"We had better pack," He then said. "It shouldn't take too long – you had better stay here, Tonks."
"Pack?" Tonks asked, only now fully realizing what she had done. "I'm sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry! If I had known what would happen, I'd never have…"
"That's the problem with your likes, isn't it, Tonks?" Snape asked acidly. "You apologize instead of thinking ahead."
But another pleading look from Potter shut him up. After all, it was Potter's home, and Snape had no right to feel as if he had lost something. No right at all.
Packing took less than the quarter of an hour – he had, after all, never completely unpacked, and when he had carefully wrapped up the vials of memories and the heavy pensieve there was little else to do.
Potter took a little longer, but still he was surprisingly quick considering that he had lived here for years. It was probably another result of the life he had led, Snape thought, that he had only few personal belongings left that held any real importance to him.
"We had better leave then," He said, heading over to open the kitchen door, since Tonks wasn't able to apparate from the house yet.
"No."
Potter's voice was as cold and emotionless as it had been back in the infirmary, and it offered as few options as it had back then.
"It is too late. They are already coming, and I won't leave the house open to them."
„How do you know…" Tonks began, but with a curtness untypical for Potter, he cut her off.
„Professor, promise me something," He said, entreating and earnest. „Whatever happens, don't take me to Ayda. The druids would do anything to help me, but they can't risk a confrontation with the wizarding world. Do you promise it?"
For a moment, Snape considered arguing, questioning what Potter was intending to do or why he should care about the safety of a woman as irritating as Ayda. But he saw the worry in Potter's eyes, and the pleading the other man didn't bother to disguise, and nodded shortly.
"I promise, Potter," He said, and suddenly, all concern vanished from the other man's body, leaving a face as serene and happy as that of any child lost in its games.
"Thank you, Professor," He said. "Don't feel bad, Tonks. You couldn't know."
Once more he turned his attention towards the house, and, touching the kitchen table in a way that seemed irritatingly intimate, whispered a goodbye.
Then, before Snape could realize what he was planning, before he could move or react, Potter ripped open the kitchen door and was gone, standing outside in nothing but his crumpled shirt and soft cotton trousers, unprotected and defenceless like a child in the storm.
"Keep them inside, raise the anti-apparition wards and prepare for full hiding" Potter commanded, his head half turned back to the house, and, as if in answer, the front door of the house fell shut with a determination alike to that on Potter's face.
Snape bit out a string of words that had Tonks turn to him in shocked surprise. Although he was famous for his eloquence, the young Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher had probably never heard it employed in this region of vocabulary, but other colleagues had told him that his swear words were impressive.
Not that they were helping him now.
Two steps brought him over to the back door and he tried the knob hastily, knowing at the same time that it was completely useless. He had felt the wards Potter had erected around his house. There was no chance in hell that he could ever dismantle them alone, not to mention that he had no interest in leaving the house defenceless.
"Why doesn't he want to leave the house?" Tonks asked helplessly, standing in the middle of the kitchen as if she had forgotten what to do.
"There's a potion lab in here that holds probably two thirds of the most dangerous potions and poisons ever invented," Snape answered shortly. "Not to mention the grimoires in his living room. Every dark wizard would kill to lay his hands on those alone. Beings the responsible imbecile that he is, Potter probably feels the need to protect these items from falling into the wrong hands."
He bit out the most powerful unlocking spell that he knew, then, when nothing happened, followed it up with every de-warding and opening charm he had ever heard of. The house wasn't even polite enough to react.
"But why did he lock us in here?" Tonks asked, and Snape groaned in frustration, both at the situation that left him helplessly gazing out of the kitchen window, and at Tonks stupidity.
"Because he's used to handling things on his own, and seeing how you behave, I can quite understand him," He hissed, and saw Tonks' face settling into a hurt look.
He was glad that Potter wasn't here to see it, he would probably have scolded Snape for being nasty, never mind the situation they were in.
Rounding up his collection of swear words with a few choice ones about Gryffindors and aurors, Snape stepped towards the window, fighting the urge to rush through the house and try every window or door. It was no use. They were in here, and Potter was out there, and there was nothing he could do to change it.
He could only watch.
Snape saw them before Tonks did: a group of perhaps a dozen men and women, clothed in elegant, expensive black robes, walking calmly towards Potter as if there was nothing in the world that could stop them.
From the look of them compared to Potter's tousled hair and crumpled outfit, Snape felt prone to agree.
Potter simply stood there, waiting for them to approach him.
"What is he doing?" Tonks now asked, amazement in her voice. "He's giving up his one advantage! Why doesn't he attack?"
"He's Potter," Snape answered, more resigned than anything else. "And being Potter, he's giving them a chance to withdraw peacefully. He would feel guilty otherwise."
"Guilty?" Tonks repeated stupidly, her eyes fixed on Potter who was slowly advancing towards the black clad group, his hands raised in a peaceful gesture. "There are twelve of them!"
Snape just shrugged. "It only makes sense when you're Potter," He answered simply.
Snape performed a silent enhancing spell on his eyes and saw an ugly sneer form on the face of the group's leader. Obviously, Potter's peace offering hadn't been received well, and the group spread out quickly to surround their single adversary.
Potter just nodded, once, and although his back was turned to Snape, the Potions Master knew exactly how his face would look, tired, a bit sad, but accepting that this was the choice the other man had made.
Then, Potter raised his right hand.
"Where did that come from?" Tonks asked, goggling at the simple wooden staff that had suddenly appeared in the man's hand.
Snape hissed in irritation. "I have no doubt that there's an endless reservoir of rather obvious and inconsequent questions inside you, just waiting to bubble up, but if you don't stop articulating them in my presence soon, Tonks, I swear…"
He fell silent. The leader of the group had drawn his wand.
Potter dodged the red spell that looked suspiciously like a Cruciatus with barely a twitch of his muscles, stepped forward and fell to one knee.
He brought the simple brown wood up in a slicing motion, and Snape wanted to groan in frustration, for this staff couldn't even hurt a muggle, not to mention break through the magic shields of a wizard.
Tonks at his side gasped as wood cut through magic and flesh and the black wizard screamed in agony. Potter twisted on his knee and opened the slicing motion to a wide arc that sent the other end of the staff at the throat of the next wizard, who fell to the ground immediately, blood gashing from a cut that had nearly removed his head from his shoulders.
Standing in a smooth, incredibly fast motion, Potter brought the staff around full circle and let it engage under his right armpit, pointing at a group of witches that was about to attack.
Thick blue smoke oozed from the end of the staff and broke through their combined shields without effort, having them gagging and retching on their knees barely a second later.
Without looking, Potter threw his hand out to the left and three wizards who had crept up to him from behind were flung away suddenly, their bodies twisting and re-forming in midair as if an invisible hand was doing unspeakable things to them.
They fell to the ground in bloody heaps, lying very still.
From a group of twelve well-trained wizards, only five were left alive. And Harry Potter wasn't even sweating.
"Blimey," Tonks whispered, watching the corpses with a mixture of awe and fear, but Snape was concentrating on the five enemies left, who were obviously recovering from the shock and regrouping.
He fixed his eyes on Potter and saw a slight trembling running through his slender frame, like the strings of a violin under too much pressure.
Snape saw Potter grasp his staff tighter and stand more erect. He knows it too, He thought, breathless with worry. It's only a matter of minutes before the seizure takes him over, and then he will be helpless in front of his enemies. He must end this fast.
As if Potter had heard his silent evaluation and agreed, he suddenly exploded into action. Dodging the red and green lights of Unforgivables, he crossed the distance between him and the black clad men and women, his staff a whirl of motion.
He cut three of their wands in half and finished off a fourth wizard with a kick to his head that sent the man to the ground, his neck twisted in an unnatural angle. Before the three now unarmed wizards could grasp their second wands, green light had engulfed them and they crumpled to the ground.
But the seizure was on him now. Potter's hands lost the strength to hold his staff and he dropped to his knees, calm and peace spreading through his body. The last wizard standing realized his chance, raised his wand and let loose a string of red flashes that sped towards his now defenceless enemy.
Potter raised his hand in a gesture that was all too known to Snape by now, he raised his hand and shoved, his body shaking with the effort.
The spells vanished in mid air.
And so did the wizard who had fired them. One moment he was standing in front of Potter's fallen body, a triumphant sneer in his face, the next moment there was only air and grass, and the eerie silence of the battlefield.
Slowly, every motion an agony, Potter fell, his body connecting with the ground just as the blue lights began to emerge from his body.
Potter's legs and arms shook. His back arched up and his head lolled back in an ugly caricature of his earlier graceful movements. The blue light intensified, crackling over him and lending the scene around him an unearthly colour.
With a hiss of urgency, Snape once more crossed to the back door and grabbed the doorknob hard.
The door didn't open.
The blue light over Potter's body intensified.
"I don't care what he ordered you to do, house," Snape growled, oblivious to the fact that he was quarrelling with a building. "If you don't let me out there, he will die. I can't imagine that to be in your interest, or is it?"
Floorboards creaked slightly, as if the house was contemplating his words. Then, slowly and with obvious hesitation, the door clicked open.
Snape didn't notice Tonk's eyes staring at his back. All he saw was the cowering, shaking figure on the front lawn, the single movement among the silent chaos of death.
He rushed towards Potter, his wand out and ready to throw shielding spells, but the man had obviously done a marvellous job. None of the men and women that were scattered around the house seemed alive anymore.
He slapped Potter hard, twice, and added a slight burning hex for good measure. He knew that there was no chance to get Potter to his bathroom or to the lab before the pain and pressure got too much for his body. This might very well be the end.
But it seemed that, for once, his luck held, and the tendrils of magic withdrew into Potter's body with a hissing sound that reminded Snape of an angry cat. Potter's body dropped to the ground, a puppet with its strings cut.
"Idiot," Snape hissed, but his hands were gentle as he moved Potter into a more comfortable position.
One brilliant green eye cracked open and the corner of Potter's lips twitched, as if trying for his usual smile but not really finding the strength.
"My enemies, my problems," He whispered, then his eyes closed and his body slackened.
"Is he…" Tonks, who had slowly approached the battlefield with awe and fear warring in her face, whispered.
"Don't be stupid, Tonks," Snape hissed. "He's just unconscious. We wouldn't be here anymore if he was dead."
Snape stood again, his eyes scanning the area around them.
"What are we going to do now?" Tonks asked, her voice quivering as she, too, surveyed the bodies scattered around them.
Snape's shoulders slumped. The safety of this house was compromised, and he had neither an idea how to bring the offensive wards back up, nor, he was uncomfortably sure, the power to do it.
Shadow wasn't an option. If he appeared with an unconscious Potter in the middle of the tavern, the vampires would demand to turn him, and Snape had no power or authority to convince them otherwise. He doubted that the centaurs possessed facilities adequate to the accommodation of injured wizards.
And he had promised Potter not to take him to Ayda.
Snape fervently searched his memories for friends, acquaintances or colleagues that might provide them shelter. But it was the Boy Who Lived they were talking about. A legend that was believed dead by most of the world. He trusted no one with this secret, and, besides, his friends weren't that widely spread.
He took a few steps towards the house, as if his body demanded activity in the face of his helplessness, then turned back around to Tonks and the still unconscious Potter.
"I don't know," He admitted. "Perhaps one of the old Order safehouses. They shouldn't be in use anymore…"
"That wouldn't do," Tonks disagreed, crouching down to examine Potter's face.
"Oh, I know," She exclaimed suddenly, her face smoothing to the happy thoughtless expression she usually wore as she unclasped a pendant she wore around her neck. "We'll take him to Hogwarts. I have a portkey to Dumbledore's office…"
"No," Snape shouted harshly and rushed towards her, but before he could reach her she had grabbed Potter and engaged the key.
"See you at Hogwarts," She shouted, and then she was off. Taking Harry Potter with her.
This time, Snape's vocabulary impressed even himself.
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A/N: I hope you liked the plot twist! Now go and tell me so!