Disclaimer: The characters and settings, including any sentences taken directly or partly from the books or movies, of Harry Potter are the property of J. K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, Bloomsbury Publishing, AOL Time Link and Warner Brothers. I do not make money from publishing my story.

'Avada Kedavra',echoed the voice of Rudolphus Lestrange. A jet of bright green energy made its way to Snape. Snape knew that if he jumped out of the way, the chances were high that the boy would be hit in his stead and while the professor was unwilling to move, Harry was frozen by the shock of hearing and seeing the death's curse.

The green light made his way towards Snape at an enormous speed, when suddenly a wind whirled up around them. An ominous feeling arose in Harry's stomache and before the spell could hit Snape a window of one of the nearby houses shattered and a simple glass shard reflected the deadly curse away from Snape onto the street.

In a whirlwind a dark energy appeared with in the middle a man wearing a black cloak. A thin and pale bone-like hand wrapped around a skeletal wand was the first thing that was visible as soon as the wind died down. The black cloak surrounding the figure fell fown sleekly around the very thin figure when it was no longer held airborne by the wind, but lost none of its eerie feeling.

And as the wind died down around the figure and the people present were able to recognize the person, the Death Eaters recovered from their shock and fell down on one knee and bow down their heads in submission.

As Harry turned around to look at the figure that had interrupted their fight. Even though he had recognized the figure by the pain he caused in Harry's head, which made him rub his forehead. Harry wanted the visual confirmation that his arch nemesis had just appeared.

Harry confirmed that it was indeed Voldemort that had appeared midst of their battle and ,whether it had been on purpose or not, apparently saved professor Snape. While the Death Eaters were distracted by their master's appearance , Harry stepped closer to said professor.

"Did I not command you to leave both Snape and the boy alive and unharmed", even though it was posed as a question, it was clearly a sign of annoyance. Voldemort's voice betrayed the irritation he felt towards his minions.

While addressing the deatheaters, save for Snape of course, whom he had purposefully ignored. He walked towards Rudolphus. "As I recall the avada Kedavra curse is still the Death curse and casting it upon either of them would go against my very order!" Voldemort finished his sentence with a small hiss, but a very clear threatening undertone. His wand still raised he cast a Cruciatus curse upon the kneeling Death Eater, who then began to groan and bite his teeth in pain.

The curse was held for about half a minute, when Rudolphus was beginning to show signs of choking and vomiting at the same time. When the curse was released, the tortured Death Eaters fell to the floor exhausted and showing some muscle spasms, but neither Voldemort or the other Death Eaters showed him their attention as it was all focused on Snape.

" Well, well, Snape, my Slithering snake, I never expected you to take Potter from directly under the old goat's nose. Nor did I expect you keep the Potterboy from me, since we had just agreed that he would be safer on the Dark side", Voldemort now focused his attention on Harry.

The part of his soul that lived inside the boy, the horcrux, how he wanted it back. He longed for it, he didn't feel it was safe were it resided now. Both Dumbledore and the spy knew of its existence, no doubt the boy would soon find out and who knows whom Dumbledore had told his secret to.

He wanted the boy, so he could safely lock away his horcrux until he could find a way to separate his precious horcrux from the boy who had ruined it all. With everyone's attention now focused on Harry as Voldemort slowly stepped closer. Snape took his chance and took a giant leap towards his student, grabbed his firmly by the arm and activated the portkey.

It all happened so fast that Harry had no time to react to sudden movement of his teacher and was swift away safely by the portkey. Voldemort still being a fair distance away from both of them saw Snape leap for the boy and was able to cast a reducto curse just before they disappeared, he didn't see whether either of them was hit, but he could care less. Someone was in a whole lot of trouble.

He turned on his heels, send another cruciatus curse towards Rudolphus, who had just been recuperating from the first round. Before Voldemort flashed away in a cloud of dark smoke. Leaving the four Death Eaters, out of which two were unable to stand on their own, behind. He had to trace the portkey his spy had just made, his infiltrator in the Ministry could help him with that.

Somewhere else in England, two people had popped out of thin air. They landed on soft grass, or at least it would have been a soft landing if they hadn't popped out three feet above the ground. The landed quite hard and both made a groan of protest.

Harry stood up and did a quick survey of the area, although he didn't know where they were, it looked safe, no Death Eaters, no Dumbledore. Snape too did a quick scan of the area, though he was forced to do it seated, as he quickly discovered, Voldemort's curse had managed to hit him, just before they disappeared.

Harry noticed his professor had a hard time standing up and tried to help him. Snape had half a mind to ignore his student, but knew he needed the help, if he wanted to get up before someone tracked them down. They were already short on time and thus Snape allowed Harry to help him by using Harry's shoulder as support while he limped in the direction of the lonely house visible in the distance.

The house was massive or at least it was to Harry's standards. Draco Malfoy would probably say it was the size of their maids quarters. Anyway, it was clear that the mansion was their destination as it was the only shelter in the area. There were a few trees, but nothing more than that.

Even though the area was ideal for their situation, very open so they could survey it easily and the weather had been on their side so far. Their luck however was slowly running out. It was late in the afternoon when Snape came home and by now it was getting dark quickly. Together they quickly made it to the front door.

Severus let go of his pupil and hastily brought his wand to his other hand, with a swift movement the skin blood began to flow on the palm of the hand where he had drawn the line with his wand. Before the blood could drop to the floor, Severus quickly placed his hand to the old oaken door.

As in response to the offered blood, the door gained a magical shine to it and bloody streaks, resembling tree roots, reached out from under Severus' hand into all directions until they sunk into the very wood and the shine disappeared. Another stroke of Severus' wand and the wound on his hand disappeared.

Being outside made Harry a little nervous after just being attacked, he wanted to get inside as soon as possible, but reaching for the door was clearly the wrong option to go for right now. As he reached for the door knob in an attempt to open the door, his hand was slapped away by the professor.

"You still need to be keyed in to the wards", Severus said warningly, before he roughly grabbed the hand he had just slapped away. He drew a line on the hand with his wand and quickly after that the first drops of blood appeared. The hand was placed on the door and Snape quietly whispered a few words that Harry couldn't make out.

After he had keyed Harry in to the wards, Severus opened the heavy oaken door and pushed his student into the large hall behind it. Snape saw the bright shimmer surrounding the house when Harry entered as if the house had taken him into his arms and decided to protect him as would he.