Chapter 16

Harry's life beat a hasty retreat, like an ending film- the blackness at the corners of the screen engulfing the picture, shrinking his awareness until it was just a tiny point of light.

Then the blackness stopped eating. The picture waxed again slowly, bleeding into the periphery.

The first thing he became clearly conscious of was that Snape was murderous.

He'd hanglined Harry's attacker with what looked like a bit of string attached at the end to a windshield cleaner, strangling the man mercilessly. He looked mad.

Air burned a clear, new path in Harry's lungs again, the realization that Snape was alive giving the atmosphere currency. His eyes watered and he wiped them quickly, the look on Snape's face terrifying and transfixing him.

He found his voice. "Severus, stop!"

Gone was the man from the day before that'd made himself spineless like a ragdoll when a muggle, who could be no real threat to him, grabbed hold of him. In his place was a man Harry didn't recognize, in a violent trance, exacting revenge like it was science.

"STOP!"

But Snape just put his boot on the man's shoulder, cutting his throat deeper with the string. The guttural noise that followed made Harry feel as though he himself were being choked again.

He got to his feet, tried putting his hands on Snape's shoulders, tried to push the pressure away from the man's neck. "Severus, Severus please-"

There was the sound of a bell clanging- Ron burst through the door of the shop, blooded, rushing behind him to the car. Hermione appeared in the doorway after, looking stunned, and once Harry registered she was fine, he gripped the collar of Snape's shirt, his face, trying to drag that cold stare away from its target.

Ron yelled something to Hermione.

The man at Snape's mercy was dying as surely as a candle being snuffed out and Snape's eyes were trained on the flame, utterly unreachable.

"STOP! STOP IT! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" He screamed in Snape's face, punched and tore at his arms to let go. "Fucking listen to me! Stop it!"

Harry scrambled.

"We could use him!"

"For what?" Snape growled, his arms twitching the string back still more, but seeming to peer through the haze of his rage for the first time.

"Information! He could tell us what we're up against! We could-," Harry rushed to say, the thoughts coming to him faster than he could communicate, "We could, we could take him somewhere our magic still works and we could force him tell us everything!"

Snape held on for a second longer, as if he knew it was the one more second he could afford before it would become too late to save the man.

Then he let go. The man fell, face forward on the concrete, gasping and grasping at his neck, coughing and spitting, but alive and Harry saw the icy blue eyes again, his dark hair and beard, the way blood rushed again to his cheeks with life. Harry held his own head in relief.

"Seems you have a new master now, Severus." It was the gravelly voice of Amycus Carrow, who Harry barely recognized as Ron pulled him into sight from behind the car, wrapped around the middle with some kind of electrical cord that Ron was using as a makeshift restraint. Carrow's right arm was stained dark through his jacket with blood and he was thinner than Harry remembered, his blonde hair like ash and his whole person just like a picture sapped of color for age. He seemed to be shaking in pain and trying to conceal it.

"You know the rest of us only pretended to enjoy kissing the Dark Lord's feet, you vile piece of shit?" Severus marched toward Amycus.

"Stop!" Harry tried to come between them but Snape pushed him out of the way and kicked Amycus viciously behind the knee to make him kneel.

Amycus cried out in pain when he hit the ground. When he recovered, he looked up at Snape. "Your new master doesn't like that, Sevvy." Harry thought Carrow must be a masochist.

Ron rushed to restrain the other man with another piece of cord, although it didn't look like he was in much condition to escape after what Severus had done to him.

"Who is he?" Harry asked, nudging Snape to look at the man Ron was restraining, hoping to distract him from beating the shit out of Amycus.

Snape stopped glaring hatefully at the former Death Easter in question to have another look at Harry's attacker, who didn't struggle against Ron. "Dolohov," Snape said.

"There are two more of them, I think they're dead," Hermione said, "in there," she pointed to the shop with a shaking finger. "And the- oh god, the boy at the till-"

Harry went to the shop door and stopped in his tracks when he saw a hand on the floor, attached to someone hidden between shelves of sunday roast flavored crisps and Mars bars. A dark line of black eeked out from the isle and Harry realized it was blood.

Snape was close behind him. "Go back to the car," he said, soft.

Harry obeyed. He felt for the keys in his pocket and remembered they were still in the ignition. As he walked back to the petrol pumps, he heard the bell of the door jingle as Snape entered the shop. He almost turned back, didn't want to leave Snape alone in case they were in for another surprise, but he couldn't. For once, he listened to directions. He wanted to be so far from there. For a moment he was so selfishly glad that Snape could look at the dead till boy and not be different for it.

Ron had both men tied, on the floor, and propped up against the ministry car. He was attempting to interrogate them but they weren't answering any of his questions, by the looks of it. Harry stood by Hermione and noticed the blood on Ron's hands as he rested them on his hips.

"Did he…" Harry started.

"Yes," Hermione whispered. "He didn't have much of a choice."

"Magic makes it a little easier to look at, doesn't it?" Harry said.

Hermione gasped for air and began to cry suddenly. She turned away from Harry, clearly embarrassed and wiped her tears quickly. She shook her head as if to rid herself of feeling.

Harry took her hand.

The bell jingled behind him again and he whipped his head back to make sure it was Severus.

"Macnair and Rookwood," Snape said. "Dead."

"That's what I thought," Ron said. "They look different then the pictures the ministry has of them so I wasn't sure."

"Did you take care of the CCTV?" Hermione asked Snape. Her voice was stronger.

"I did."

"We need to leave," she said. "Now."

They all looked at the ministry car, with Dolohov and Carrow glaring back at them from the floor.

"How will we all fit?" Ron said.

"Put the trash in the boot," Snape said.

Ron didn't flinch. "They won't both fit."

Harry looked at them like they were mad.

Snape strode to Dolohov and grabbed him by the cord around his torso, dragging him against the concrete into a good position to haul him into the car.

"No, no, no," Dolohov said, his voice raspy with hurt, but Snape didn't stop.

"Yeah, boot it is then. Snape, maybe there's some tape in there," Ron said and pointed to the shop. Hermione didn't move. Both her and Harry looked at Ron in disbelief. "So he doesn't make any noise while he's in there," Ron said, as though they were confused instead of appalled.

"Open the boot," Snape said, talking to Harry as if he had the keys.

Harry looked between Ron and Snape. "Have you two lost your minds? We are not putting a whole human being in the boot of a car."

"We'll question Amycus first and then they can switch places," Snape said, speaking to Ron this time. "Don't worry, Dolohov, you'll get your turn."

"That CANNOT be the plan," Harry yelled.

"They would have killed us, Harry!"

"Stop trying to reason with him, Weasley, he clearly values their lives over his own," Snape said, venomous, and Harry felt angered by it even in the midst of this chaos, where so many other things must be more important.

"It won't even be for that long," Ron said, not even looking slightly guilty for taking Snape's side.

"What if he suffocates in there?"

"HE," Snape yelled, whipping Dolohov's head back by the hair, "Would have suffocated YOU!"

"Wait!" Hermione said, pointing to behind Ron and Snape. Concealed on the other side of the petrol pump, a small green two-door car was parked. It looked older, a little like Mr. Weasley's charmed Ford Anglia. "They came in a car. One of them must have a key."

Ron and Snape looked at Carrow and Dolohov. They both went for a respective Death Eater at once. Harry's kept watch on Snape, who shoved Dolohov's head to the ground with his boot and stepped on his face while he searched his pockets. Dolohov swore at Snape and Carrow uttered similar expletives as Ron did the same to him.

"Got 'em," Ron said, straightening up. Carrow spit at his feet.

Then they all moved quickly without talking much, agreeing silently on a dozen little decisions that had to be made before they could leave. Harry filled the tank of the ministry car with petrol and Hermione filled the other one as Ron and Severus pulled Dolohov into the front seat of the older green car and Amycus into the back seat of the ministry car.

"Where do we go?" Hermione said, as Ron slammed the door behind Amycus.

They moved further away from the cars and spoke in low voices so their captives couldn't hear.

"Robin Hood's Bay, meet with other Aurors like we planned," Ron said.

"One of them's spying," Snape said.

"No way," Ron said.

"I think one of them must be," Hermione said, looking like she quite regretted saying it. "Why was the tank empty? How would they have known we would stop for petrol? That we'd be within range of the spell?"

It brought Harry back to a lead they'd been chasing what seemed like ages ago. "Did we bring any Unspeakables with us? From the Department of Mysteries?"

"No." Ron looked worried.

"What?"

"It's just that- well none of us is supposed to talk about any investigations, ever, but especially this one. We haven't even physically been in the ministry for almost a month now, it couldn't have been casual gossip."

Ron cringed as Harry asked, "So you think it's a spy?"

"I don't want to."

"We need to move," Hermione said again, looking at the road as if worried another car would pass soon. "Now."

"How do we know where we're going?"

"I'll call Dawlish, you follow close behind."

"Me and Snape will take Dolohov," Harry said, nodding to the older green car. He didn't want to stop the car to keep Snape from murdering Amycus, who still apparently wasn't keeping his mouth shut.

"Good idea," Hermione said. "Can we move now?"

Harry and Ron switched keys and they were off, four doors slamming shut in succession and the gravelly tar of the petrol station under the tires filling Harry's ears.

He'd followed Ron around a few turns and then onto the main road and Dolohov began making unbearable noises from the back seat, coughing and groaning, spitting up blood.

"Dolohov, would you kindly shut the fuck up?" Snape was still fuming.

Harry couldn't help himself. "You almost killed him!"

"You'd rather I let him kill you?"

"No, obviously not, I just- I don't know," Harry said, not sure how to put into words his fear for Severus's soul, afraid of what he was capable of and at the same time, guiltily, a deep sense of pleasure. "There were other options."

Snape was quiet and Dolohov appeared to be trying to silence himself as well, his groaning coming to halt and nothing audible from him but an occasional deep breath.

"He could kill us both right now. He could find a way out of his binds and wrap his hands around your throat again and crash this car. Or turn the wheel as we're going over a bridge. Or end your life in any number of irrevocable ways. You think I like- you think it's easy for me to-?"

"It seemed easy," Harry said. It was a cruel thing to say but it came to him quickly. He couldn't really bring himself to regret it; he wanted Snape to explain this mad burst of violence. If Hermione said Ron didn't have a choice, he believed her, but Snape surely had.

The sun was low in the sky and glaring for a moment from behind a bed of clouds, making his eyes water. Squinting made him notice how his face hurt. He looked in the rearview mirror to glance at himself but instead saw behind him; Dolohov's chest moving with his breath and the blood drying on his neck.

Then he noticed Severus's silence next to him. "I'm sorry," he said, glancing from the road to look at him. "I'm just trying to understand."

"Stop trying. Keep your eyes on the road."

"Don't be a dick."

"My silence disturbs you, but when I speak you don't like what I have to say. Maybe you could save us both the time and tell me what it is, exactly, you want me to puppet back to you, Master Potter."

"Oh, here we go-"

"I'll say whatever it is you want, Potter," Snape raised his voice over him.

Dolohov began retching in the back seat.

"A Death Eater goads you a minute ago and you're already treating me like you think it's true," Harry said, his grip on the wheel tightening, nearly shouting to be heard over Dolohov and the possibility that Snape wouldn't let him get a word in. "Like I think it's true. I just didn't recognize you. For fuck's sake, look what you've done to him!"

By the looks of him in the rearview, Dolohov was choking on his own spit and fighting for breath again.

Ron changed lanes in the ministry car ahead of them and Harry matched him.

"I tell you constantly."

Dolohov quieted and Harry focused his gaze on Ron's car, trying to anticipate his next move and decode Snape's meaning at the same time.

"I tell you constantly," Snape said, again as if to himself.

"What are you on about?"

Snape said nothing, and Harry sensed it was because of Dolohov's presence. Harry doubted he had enough oxygen to rub two brain cells together after what Severus did to him but he didn't say it.

"You think Weasley hesitated?" Snape no longer sounded angry. There were just fast, sharp corners to his words, like at any moment he'd make you run into something. "You think he thought twice about where to stick the knife I gave him not a minute before when he and Granger were threatened? Why isn't he getting the same sermon?"

"I don't know what Ron did in there."

"I know," Snape said. He didn't say he knew what happened because he could go into the shop and face it and Harry couldn't, but Harry imagined he could hear that in his tone.

"He stabbed them. They bled out. He didn't think about where he was plunging the knife."

"It's different," Harry insisted. "You almost strangled him to death, you could have just stopped and restrained him or something. Like you did to Amycus-" then Harry recalled he didn't exactly know how Snape had dealt with Amycus without killing him.

"How could you possibly think I would take that risk?"

"It's a risk worth taking. To save your soul, to save his."

"To save his-," Snape started, bordering on fury again but then he stopped. His voice went blank again. "He watched you die. He put his filthy hands on you- he took your life in them and squeezed until you were dead. He's not worth your mercy, not even worth your pity. I would have killed him for doing less."

It felt so good. He hated himself for it, but it felt so good to hear Severus say that.

"He deserved to die," Snape finished.

"That's not for me or for you to decide."

"It's not exactly like magic where you can decide which spell to cast. Would you rather Weasley had taken that risk to save Macnair or Rookwood if it meant Granger might die?"

"No," Harry said honestly. "I would have done the same to save her."

"I see," Snape said.

The truth hit him, like something splattered against the windshield. He, Harry, didn't think he was worth that. He didn't think he was worth saving in exchange for a bit of someone's soul. He thought if fate called for his life to be conquered by another, that was a turn of events no one should resist.

He knew Severus understood this about him.

They were silent for a long time, Harry seeing in his periphery that Snape just stared out the window. Dolohov was quiet, no longer retching, and Harry wished he could see Dolohov's face in the rearview mirror, make out his expression.

And then a high jutting of purple light in the horizon siphoned all of his attention. Ron sped up in front of him and Harry followed suit.

It was the same deep, black-like purple that Harry knew was magic mortus and the closer they drove, the more like an intricate cage it looked, like lattice work and tripe at the same time, dome shaped around the promontory of Robin Hood's Bay.

Harry suddenly realized there were no other people on the road but him and Ron. He remembered the eerie emptiness of the petrol station and it made sense- but what had the boy at the till been doing there?

The sea of black ministry cars became clearer. There were tents as well, little triangles of brown in the grass and camp fires amongst them. Ron turned off the main road onto the grass. Harry's older car struggled to keep up, the tires streaking in the giant lawn. When he put the car in park and watching Ron get out of the car to speak to Dawlish, he looked at the rest of men and women talking outside their cars, sitting with the passenger–side door open or leaning on the boot and he wondered which one had betrayed them.

After Ron debriefed Dawlish, the medical team examined all of them, the muggle doctors much more useful than the Healers. They were still in denial of magik mortus, trying to make their charms work. Harry had some bruising on his neck and a sore throat from the strangulation they couldn't do anything about. They bandaged and cleaned the scrapes on his face and on the small of his back where he'd been dragged out of the car against the gravel. Carrow was treated for his bleeding arm and neck- Harry learned Severus had shoved Carrow's upper body into the broken glass of the window to evade him. Dolohov's neck was bandaged where the string cut into him and Ron, Hermione, and Severus sustained no injuries.

The Aurors used muggle handcuffs to restrain Dolohov and Carrow, seating them outside separate ministry cars and interrogating them. How does magik mortus work exactly, who sent you, who's feeding you information, where's your sister, Amycus? Harry knew it was fruitless, so he sat on the hood of a car with Hermione, Snape leaning on another car near them, waiting for Ron to finish. His arms were crossed and it seemed to Harry that his whole body was like one taught cord. Darkness was engulfing them as the evening drew closer.

"The fuckers aren't talking," Ron said, finally approaching them. "Not even about how the spell's expanded without this cage fucking thing being over everywhere. We offered them clemency but that hasn't worked yet. We're sending them back to the ministry for Veritaserum. Potions aren't working out here either."

"And everyone still thinks it's a brilliant idea to send Potter in there as bait," Snape said. "Perhaps we should wait until we get more information from Dolohov and Carrow on Veritaserum."

"What could we possibly do from the outside, even if we did get more information about what's in there?" Harry asked.

"Professor Snape is right," Hermione said. "We have no idea what's in there. Most likely we'll be trapped once we're inside. We have no idea if it will even provoke a reaction from him, whoever he is, that would put him in a vulnerable position. What if we're doing exactly what he wants us to do?"

"It's not like I think it's a grand plan," said Ron. "We're just playing along until we've drawn him out and he's visible and we learn more about him. Besides, what's the alternative? I go in or a bunch of us go in and Harry's possibly alone with one of these traitors?"

"I'm not letting anyone go in there without me."

"This is a waste of time, then," Severus said. His angular face was luminated by the camp fire as the sky darkened continuously, heightened awareness in his features, defeat in his voice. "Let's go."

They moved then- all seemed to be in agreement because they no longer argued. Ron didn't try to make Hermione stay and Harry didn't try to keep Severus from following him and Severus didn't try to force Harry to protect himself. Ron just told Dawlish they were ready and the muggles taught them how to hold a gun, how not to accidentally shoot themselves, how to aim, how to hold themselves if they pulled the trigger. The test shots rang out and made Carrow jump, the Aurors around him laughing.

The muggle officers gave them each their own gun. Harry watched Ron and Hermione look at each other while two men were holstering them.

"You have permission to shoot me in my sleep if I snore," Ron said to her.

Hermione nodded, not smiling. "Okay."

And that was the last thing any of them said to each other before they passed through the wall of the purple cage, entering the village of Robin Hood's Bay.