Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 12

The entire room froze around us for a moment as we all tried to comprehend what had just happened in front of us. The voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt almost seemed to echo around the congregation as we all began to look at each other in complete shock and disbelief.

Then, all at once, everything turned to complete and utter chaos as people began to scatter around the tent as quickly as possible. There were shouts and screams as people began to run through the area and find their loved ones before running off to a place where they could Apparate. In all of this mess, Harry and I were going to have to find some way to find everyone that was traveling with us and escape as quickly as possible.

"Hermione!" Harry and I shouted. "Ron! Neville!"

Our shouts were hardly audible over the sounds of panic that were going all throughout the area. In the mix, I saw the Lovegoods quickly running off in their bright colored robes that made them stick out from the rest. Not far off from them, I saw a terrified-looking Neville that was frantically searching the crowd.

"Neville – over here!" I shouted as I waved my arm in the air to get his attention.

His eyes quickly found me and he pushed through the crowd to make his way over to where Harry and I were moving along in a sad attempt to find our friends before anything too bad happened.

The three of us grabbed onto one another to make sure we weren't lost when I suddenly noticed that the members of the Order were all standing around making sure everyone exited the area safety as they held their wands out in a defensive position. It only took the three of us a second to realize that we needed to have our wands out as well, seeing as we had no idea what could happen next.

"Emily!"

I looked over and saw George pushing his way through the crowd looking more worried than I thought was possible.

"George – you need to get out of here," I told him.

"What about you?" he asked immediately.

"Don't worry, we're getting out of here as soon as we find Ron and Hermione," I told him.

"You're leaving now, aren't you?" George said.

He didn't have to say it completely, but I knew that he was asking if we were going into hiding now. I nodded my head and it almost looked as though it pained him to see me do it.

"Please keep yourself safe," George said.

"I'll try to," I said.

Even though everything was chaotic around us, George still quickly stepped over and kissed me hard on the mouth. It wasn't exactly an appropriate time for it, but I knew that we wouldn't really have much of a chance after this.

"Now get out of here," George said.

I nodded and he disappeared into the crowd again toward the area where the members of the Order were now spreading out to defend whatever was coming toward us. If we had any chance of escaping before all Hell broke loose, we were going to have to get out of here now.

"Hermione!" Harry shouted. "Ron! Where are you?"

"Over here!" I heard a strangled yell to our left.

My head jerked back and saw Hermione and Ron pushing through the crowd to make it toward the rest of us. Just as they stepped over to meet us, I looked across the area in horror when I saw that dark, masked figures were beginning to appear throughout the area. The Death Eaters had arrived – and no doubt, Voldemort would be following to search for us.

Tonks, Lupin, and Mr. Weasley were standing the closest to them, and they immediately began to spit off spells from their wands as soon as they saw them there. Mrs. Weasley and Bill were not far off when Hermione suddenly began to shout something at me that I couldn't comprehend.

My eyes immediately flew over to the crowd of people that were still pushing through the tents when I finally locked onto George who was making his way over to help with the fight against the Death Eaters. My heart seemed to stop all at once when I saw him step over there, looking determined and battle-ready. Every cell in my body was practically screaming at me to go after him and make sure that he wouldn't get hurt, but Hermione suddenly grabbed my arm.

That was the last thing I saw of the battle before everything around me went dark and all of my insides felt as though they were being squished through a tube that wasn't quite big enough to fit me.

The next thing I knew, we were suddenly standing in the middle of a street that was filled with people. Not far from us, cars were moving quickly by us and the sounds of engines zoomed past us as we tried to figure out where we had turned up.

"Hermione, where in the hell are we?" Ron asked.

"Tottenham Court Road," she said quickly. "Now start walking – now."

The street around us was packed with people and I suddenly grew anxious that someone would recognize us. While Harry and I still had our Polyjuice Potion that was working, we weren't exactly blending in as well as we could have. Our attire stood out from everyone else and it was fairly obvious that we didn't belong here. Eyes were locked on us as we walked through the street and I could almost feel my throat closing up as I began to panic at the thought of being caught. Only when Neville grabbed onto my hand did I realize that my pace was starting to slow as my eyes darted to everyone that passed by.

"Emily, it's going to be okay," he said as he pulled me along. "We have to keep moving if we're going to get out of here."

I nodded and swallowed hard as I continued to look forward and tried to only focus on where Hermione was taking us. My hand tightened on Neville's and I subconsciously thought that I might be hurting him, but I was too panicked to focus entirely on that.

"Hermione, we have to find somewhere to stop," Ron said. "People are staring."

"I'm working on it, Ron," she snapped back.

Only moments later we made a sudden turn where we went toward a small café that sat next to a couple of little shops on the street. Luckily there were only a few people in there that seemed to be minding their own business when we walked in. They didn't even bother to look up at us as the bell rang when we entered.

"We have to get out of these clothes," Ron said in almost a whisper as he pulled on his dressing robes. "We must look mad to all these Muggles."

"How exactly are we going to do that?" Harry asked. "It isn't like we can just jump back to your house and grab our things…and it'll be impossible to get into Gringotts to get any money at this point…"

As they continued to talk about that, I noticed Hermione grabbing for something in the bag she was carrying at her side. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have noticed it if it weren't for the fact that she had over half of her arm sticking into a purse that hardly looked like it could fit a wallet in it.

"Um…Hermione?" I asked. "What…?"

I didn't know how to ask her, so I just motioned toward what she was doing and Harry and Ron stopped talking as they looked over at her as well. Harry raised an eyebrow, Ron looked at her suspiciously, and Neville appeared dumbfounded.

"I put an Undetectable Extension Charm on it…" she murmured as she pulled out some jeans that appeared to belong to one of the boys. "I packed all of our things before the ceremony just in case something happened…I just wanted to be prepared."

"Have I ever mentioned how amazing you are?" Ron asked.

"Well, um…" she said as she began to blush. "It was just in case…"

She finally got around to my clothes and we all just stared at each other for a minute. Next we decided to take turns changing our clothing in the bathroom while we managed to find a seat and order some drinks to make sure we didn't appear too suspicious. When I came back out of the bathroom, I now wore long jeans, a blue shirt, and a black jacket.

The waitress didn't seem surprised at all when we had all come in and changed clothing. I couldn't decide if it was because it happened a lot in the café or if it was just because she didn't care about what was happening. I was leaning toward the latter of the two possibilities.

After we took our orders – a coffee with cream for me – we all finally began to consider what it was we were doing at this point. Honestly, we hardly had any time to think about what was going on since we had suddenly left the wedding and it was only now starting to sink in what had just happened.

"So…what do we do now?" Neville asked us. "As long as your potions are wearing off and people have a chance to recognize you, we can't exactly stick around the streets, right?"

We all sort of looked around at each other without any answers. Judging by the way that Neville was looking at us all, I realized that he must have assumed that we had planned out where we would hideout if this sort of thing happened without him knowing about it. Unfortunately, we had about as good of a plan on hiding as he did.

I didn't realize it until he mentioned it, but the Polyjuice Potion was definitely starting to wear off because my hair was noticeably longer than it had been before. While I knew that I hadn't completely transformed back to myself, it wouldn't be much longer until Harry and I were recognizable. Looking over at my brother, I noticed that he was starting to squint as though he was losing his vision again and his hair was starting to turn black.

"Maybe we should try to figure out what's going on," Ron said. "We could stop by the Leaky Cauldron – "

"Are you mad?" Harry asked.

"Ron, we can't go anywhere near a place that's associated with the Wizarding world," Hermione said. "Voldemort and his Death Eaters are looking everywhere for Harry and Emily – we can't risk exposing ourselves like that."

When the waitress walked over to us and a couple other people passed by us in the restaurant, we silently decided to stop discussing it as long as we were in the public. We couldn't trust anyone other than ourselves.

"Here are your drinks," the waitress said in a monotonous tone as she passed our orders around.

I just looked down at my drink and started stirring in while I took note of Ron staring down at the drink as though it were something vile. Once the waitress was finished, she went back behind the counter without another word. After that, I noticed that the people that had been there when we arrived were now leaving the café.

"All I can think to do is make sure we contact someone in the Order," I said in a hushed tone. "They're the only ones we can really rely on at this point."

They continued to talk, but my attention was taken when the two men that had recently walked into the café stood up simultaneously and began to walk in our direction. From underneath the table, I nudged Harry's foot and tried to discreetly motion toward them for some sort of warning. As he looked over toward them, I began to pull my wand out from my jacket while avoiding their eyes. Neville, who was sitting next to me, seemed to have noticed this because he was now tensed up and reaching for a wand himself.

Just when I thought that I might be getting too paranoid, they made a sudden movement and Harry and I quickly shot out of our chairs and began firing spells back at them.

"Stupefy!" Harry and I shouted at once.

Hermione and Ron were completely baffled by the situation, which made them immediate targets for the men. The taller one of the two aimed directly at Hermione's head, but Ron was quick to jump up and push her out of the way before he could utter a single syllable.

"Bombarda!" I shouted as I aimed my wand at the table next to them.

The table immediately exploded and sent one of them crashing to the ground. The other man went send a shot Harry's way, but Hermione was far quicker than he was.

"Petrificus Totalus!" she shouted.

He immediately went stiff and toppled to the ground just as the other man went to stand up. All at once, we all pointed our wands and shouted the same thing:

"Stupefy!"

As each spell hit him, he fell back to the ground and was knocked unconscious. The two men were now lying on the ground with chunks of the table still lying all around them and a small amount of blood running off of them where they had been cut by the wood.

"Who in the hell were they?" Neville asked as he stepped closer with his wand still in his hand.

"Death Eaters, no doubt," Harry said.

"They must have followed us when we walked in here earlier," I said.

"How could they have found us?" Hermione asked in disbelief. "I…I thought this place was safe."

"I guess they're more prepared than we thought," Harry said.

We only gave it a moment or two before we began to approach the unconscious forms of the Death Eaters that we had just taken out.

"I've never seen them before," I said.

"Nor have I…" Harry said. "Though one of them looks a bit familiar, but I reckon that I saw him in a poster or something…"

We all just stood around them for a moment with the same look of fear in our eyes. If these two men were able to track us down that easily, who was to say that we could be safe anywhere? How on earth could they have found us in a small Muggle café like this within minutes of our arrival?

"We need to close off the area," I said. "Make sure no one can see this, right?"

"Wait, what about the waitress?" Neville spoke up. "Where did she go?"

We all looked around and I realized that the waitress was no longer in the room. That's when I suddenly noticed that there was a small room in the back that she must have gone off to. Had she seen anything? Had she run off to call the police?

"I'll go see what she's doing," I said.

"Okay, let's close up here," Hermione said. "Shut the door and turn off the lights."

I didn't hear any more that she had to say as I pushed through the door that led into the backroom where I found the waitress standing with headphones pushed far into her ears as she nodded her head and mouthed along to lyrics that I couldn't hear. I raised an eyebrow as I considered just leaving her alone in here, but then realized that she would eventually walk back out and see what was going on in the café.

"Um…hello?" I said.

She continued to listen to her music as she went to go pick up some dirty cups that were sitting on a counter and put them into the sink. I looked around the room and noticed, with relief, that there was a door labeled 'Exit' just a few feet away. All I would have to do was get her out of there to avoid her seeing what was happening.

"Excuse me?" I said louder.

Her eyes carelessly went over to look at me for a second and then they grew wide when she actually saw me there. She pulled out one of the ear buds and gave me a look of pure annoyance.

"You're not supposed to be back here," she said. "Read the sign – it says 'employees only.'"

"Right, that's fascinating," I muttered. "I think that – "

"I know the coffee here is rubbish, so save it," she rolled her eyes. "I don't buy the stuff, I just make it."

As she was talking, I realized that this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be. I was just going to try to get her out of the building as quickly as possible without her seeing anything, but I couldn't see that happening at this point.

"Lady, I'll just be a minute, okay?" she said.

"Wonderful," I said sarcastically.

She plugged her headphones back in and turned around. As soon as her back was to me, I pulled my wand back out and whispered a sleeping spell under my breath. It only took a half of a second for her to yawn and begin to stumble around before I stepped over and made sure she didn't fall to the ground and do any damage to herself. As she fell into an unconscious state, I laid her onto the ground and tried to squirm out of her way as gracefully as possible.

"Is everything okay…?" Neville asked as he opened the door, but stopped when he saw her lying on the floor. "What did you do to her?"

"Relax, she's only asleep," I said.

I walked over to the door he was in and we both went over to where the other three were standing overtop of the Death Eaters. Only this time, Hermione had her wand out and appeared to have just done something funny to their heads, judging by the look in their eyes. When she saw me staring, she began to explain.

"It's a Memory Charm," she said. "I figured it would be best if they didn't remember we were here…"

"Brilliant," I nodded.

After that, we just stood in silence for a moment and tried to evaluate the situation. We had just been found, so there was no way we could just stick around here long enough for the Death Eaters to regain consciousness or the waitress to wake back up.

"Where can we hide from them?" Ron asked. "If they found us here, of all places, where could we possibly go?"

"What about Grimmauld Place?" Harry said in a flash.

We all looked up at him wordlessly. The fact that he had come to say that so quickly made it obvious that he had been thinking about it for a good while now. To be honest, I hadn't even considered it because I thought it would be so reckless. I couldn't imagine that Harry had thought it through much because the other side was bound to have known about it by then – they would know that we might go there for safe haven.

"Harry, we can't…" I said slowly.

"Why not?" Harry said. "It's perfect – "

"It's where the Order met up," I told him.

"Which is why – " Harry started.

"Snape will have told them by now," I said. "They know about the house and we can't go there as long as Snape knows about it."

As I said it, I noticed a look on Hermione's face that could only have been described as pity. It almost irritated me that she was staring at me like that, but it wasn't even a second later that I discovered that she wasn't the only one. It was as if I couldn't say his name without everyone feeling awkward about it.

"Ron's dad told me that they've put up protections against him," Harry said.

"That doesn't mean that he couldn't get passed them," Hermione said.

"You know what," Harry said bitterly. "I think I'd like to see him there. I'd like nothing better than to have a go – "

"Leave it," I cut him off.

"Emily," he said. "I know that you want a go at him more than anyone – "

"Because killing him will solve everything, won't it?" I spat. "It'll set everything right in the world?"

"It would make me feel loads better," Harry retorted.

"Brilliant!" I said sarcastically. "Let's just stop looking for the damn Horcruxes and go on a man hunt for Snape, why don't we? That's what you want, isn't it?"

"That's not what I said," Harry tried to defend himself.

"And don't you dare try to suggest that I'm willing to murder someone just to get back at them," I said angrily. "Just because it would bring you satisfaction to see him dead does not mean that I feel the same."

Ron looked stunned and Hermione didn't look like she wanted to put her opinion into the conversation. Neville just continued to look between Harry and me as if he expected us to start choking each other at any moment.

"Let's get out of here before some more Death Eaters show up," I said irritably.

"Where?" Ron asked quietly, almost looking at me like I would start yelling at him if he used the wrong tone.

"Grimmauld Place," I said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked. "What if they're there?"

"Then I guess Snape's going to have to murder me," I said.

Hermione looked hesitant, but she held her arm out for everyone to hold onto and suddenly we were all being pressed into nothing again. However, this time I felt like I couldn't concentrate on the discomfort of Apparating because I was already focused on the fact that there might be someone on the other end that would be waiting for us.

In that small amount of time that we had between the two places, I suddenly began to wonder what I would do if we did find Snape there. To be honest, I still didn't think that I'd have the will power to kill him. Even after all he had done, I couldn't bring myself to end his life. Sure, I wanted to punch him in the head and cause him some sort of physical pain for what he had done to us, but I knew in my gut that I couldn't do it.

When my vision began to clear up, I found that we were all standing around the outside of my godfather's old home. When I saw it, my knees suddenly felt weak and I couldn't move.

This had once been a safe haven where Sirius had lived, but now it just seemed to be a hollow shell. Sure, it didn't look that much different than it had before, but it was missing a vital piece of the mix. Without Sirius, it was just an old house on a street that held too many memories.

We all moved toward number twelve at a steady pace before we stopped in front of the door and Harry knocked in the center of it with his wand. After the door unlocked itself, we stood there for a moment and listened to the silence inside the house. Tired of waiting any longer, I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it until I could pull the door open with sudden deliberateness. Without hesitation, I pulled my wand out and had it ready to attack anyone that might come at me, but there was no one there.

"Everyone, get inside," I said without looking at them.

They all did as I said and we closed the door behind us without saying a word amongst ourselves. When I looked around, I suddenly grew disappointed that it had been so easy to get through the door. Knowing the Order, I hardly believed that they hadn't even tried to put up some sort of trap for unwanted guests – especially Snape.

No one was moving, so I took the initiative to be the one to first step through the house to see what was going on. It all seemed too easy until I made my fourth step into the main hallway.

"Severus Snape?" a voice said angrily.

I froze in my spot and my eyes darted all around the room in attempt to find the source of the voice. Chills went down my spine as I realized whose voice I had just heard.

"Was that Moody?" Ron asked in a hushed tone.

"This isn't Snape," I said in a shaky tone.

As I went to take another step, the floor creaked underneath my foot and I suddenly felt like something had just smacked me right in the chest as it became difficult to breathe. My tongue curled up inside of my mouth and I began to panic when I thought that I wouldn't be able to get any air into my lungs. Then, just as suddenly as it had happened, it was gone.

"W-what-was-that?" Neville said in between gasps.

I didn't answer him because I was now fixed on something – or someone – that was rising up from the carpet that ran throughout the hallway that we stood in. From the dust on the ground came a figure that was tall in stature and demented in the face. The man from the dust looked as though his eyes had been ripped out and his body looked withered as his clothes hung on him like he was a pile of bones. As he began to move swiftly toward us, his long hair and beard began to fly back and his arm went forward and pointed at us as he drew nearer.

Hermione, recognizing who the figure must be, began to scream and step back to get as far away as possible, but I was frozen in the spot. Harry, who was only feet away from me, had the same reaction. We were stunned and afraid.

"We didn't kill you!" Harry yelled as the figure came only feet away from us.

With that, the entire figure exploded right before my eyes with a deafening screech and enough dust to choke any person in the room. For a good while, I stood where I was coughing up the dust until tears began to come out of my eyes. It seemed to have the same effect on everyone else.

"I…I guess that was the line of defense," I said between coughs.

"Why would they –?" Hermione started.

"It was probably to scare Snape," Ron said as he walked over to comfort her.

"Well…it definitely wasn't pleasant," Neville said as he continued to cough.

While they recuperated, I continued to scan what I could see of the house to be able to tell if we were alone in here. While the trick that was set up seemed to be able to disturb anyone who walked through the door, there was still a chance that someone got through like we had.

"Homenum revelio," Hermione suddenly said.

I turned around and looked at her and noticed a look of relief on her face. When she noticed that we were all looking at her, she decided to explain herself.

"No one is here," Hermione said. "That is what that spell tells us."

"Right," I nodded.

So that was it. We were alone. But what would we do now? Where would we go from there?

Thanks for reading!