This chapter is dedicated to my brother, who passed while I was writing it.
Chapter 18
Harry snapped up in bed.
Snape was at the foot again, but sitting on the floor, the back of his dark head visible between Harry's shoes. The room glowed with light.
"Shit," Harry said, ashamed of his grogginess. "You didn't sleep." His throat hurt and his voice sounded hoarse.
"It's alright," Snape said. Harry looked around for the first time. There was an old-fashioned clock on the bedside. Ten to eight.
The night before was coming back to him in backward parts. Winning an argument, silent dread staring back at them in the form of two feet behind a door, the television so loud, Snape telling him he loved him.
He crawled down to the bed and lay on his stomach, head to head with Snape.
Snape turned to meet his eye. Then he leaned back as if to get a better look at Harry and his eyes trailed over Harry's face, and down his neck. He raised a hand and cradled Harry's bruised throat.
A sudden knock on the door surprised him into uprightness and before he could protest, Snape rose from the floor and removed the propped chair to open it, not apparently worried.
It was Ron and Hermione.
"Rise and shine," Ron said. "Let's get out of this rank hole."
Severus checked the hall behind him and closed the door.
"Holy shit, your neck," Ron said, pointing at Harry.
Harry went into the bathroom, using the excuse to hide his blush caused by the sudden lack of privacy, to look at it in the mirror. Purple and black dimpled in a two-part circle around his throat.
He tried clearing his voice. It echoed. And hurt. "Do you think it'll be distracting?"
"If everyone here is like Roger the lobby boy freakshow, I don't think we have to worry."
"Did you hear anything last night?" Harry heard Snape ask. He joined them again in the bedroom.
Ron looked between Harry and Snape. "No. Why?" His eyes then fixed on the bed, seemingly searching for a reason to be disgusted.
Snape was already looking livid and Hermione looked so tired that she was bordering on a mental break, so Harry spoke quickly. "The- the television turned on. Randomly. I didn't turn it on or press anything by accident 0r-" It occurred to him to look for a remote now in the daylight.
"We don't know that," Snape said.
"Right but I don't even see a remote, do you? Anyway, it turned on and it was so bloody loud we thought for sure it would wake up the whole building. It was a talk show, like a proper night time talk show and Rebecca Rickton was the guest."
"What?" Hermione whispered.
"I know."
There was another knock on the door and Hawthorne and Savage joined them. Harry wished they'd had more time with Ron and Hermione alone but he shared with them what they missed and filled in the last few terrifying details.
"He- they- it- just stood out there?"
"Correct."
"For how long?"
"Five minutes?" Harry said, not keen to think about it again.
Ron's voice went high-pitched. "No."
"Yes."
"Do you think it was Roger from the lobby?" Hermione asked.
Snape and Harry looked at each other.
"Nothing confirmed it but- yes."
"Why didn't you- did you think of-"
"I just thought that if we were really quiet and still…"
The whole room suddenly seemed colder and all of them, save for Snape, shifted uncomfortably.
"Well disturbing," Hawthorne grunted. It was the first thing he said since he walked in the room, and Harry, who'd been watching his reactions closely, noticed he looked well rested.
"I need to speak to Severus," Harry announced to the whole room. "Alone- give us a minute."
Harry went into the bathroom and waited for Snape to follow. Snape, after a reluctant pause, brushed past him and Harry shut the door in their confused faces.
Snape seemed irritated. "What?" he asked.
Harry said nothing and listened at the door. "They're being fucking silent, they can hear every word we say," Harry whispered. "Oi!" he yelled, banging the door once. "Stop listening and talk amongst yourselves."
He heard someone scoff and Ron muttering something, annoyed, but they did start chatting to each other.
Harry turned. Snape was glaring at him with his arms crossed. He ignored the glare and grabbed a towel from the bar near him and threw it on the floor, covering up the crack at the end of the door. For good measure, he took another tower and held it up flat against the wood, hoping it might muffle them more.
And then, feeling really stupid in that position he had to keep, he whispered so low it was almost just mouthing, "I just need to know if you really meant what you said last night. And that it happened. Like I didn't dream that bit. Did I?"
Snape opened the faucet in the sink. "You could have simply done that," he said.
"That doesn't cover up sound as much as everyone thinks it does."
Snape looked puzzled.
"Never mind- muggle thing. Severus- did you mean it or not?"
"I don't say things I don't mean."
"Sometimes you do."
They were still talking almost mutely and Snape looked angry because he was confused again.
"What?"
"Sometimes," Harry said, moving his mouth more slowly, "you do."
Water from the faucet choked and then resumed a steady stream.
"Things like 'I think you must be illiterate' or 'Make yourself right at home,'" Snape said. "Not-" he paused, and nodded at Harry, vulnerable confirmation, not mocking anymore, "I love you."
Harry dropped the towel, stepped forward and angled his head up to catch Snape in a kiss.
Snape rested his hands on Harry's hips. When they were apart, Harry said, "I can't wait to fuck." It wasn't so hard to understand each other at that distance.
Glinting black eyes. "So don't. Die."
"I'll try as hard as you do," Harry remembered.
Snape's gaze was searching; he'd recognized his own backward wish. Then he turned the faucet off and walked past him, kicking the towels out of the way, opening the door.
"I'm not ashamed to admit that this," Harry heard Rom saying, just before Snape moved and he caught a glimpse of him waving a finger around the room, "is the scariest fucking place I've ever been in my life."
"We can't stay hauled up here," Savage said. "We need to understand this place, see what we're up against."
"Before we leave this room, I want to say what I hope is obvious," Snape began. "There's only one way we know of to end Magik Mortus."
"Kill the caster," Hawthorne said.
"Precisely. Is everyone clear on that point?"
All eyes were suddenly on Harry. "Yes!" Harry said, annoyed.
"And you're not secretly thinking there must be another way, are you?" Ron probed.
"No," Harry said. "I acknowledge it's the only way."
Ron nodded but still looked at him with intent. Then he said, "I'm hungry."
Hawthorne let out a derisive laugh but said nothing.
Hermione ignored him. "Let's go to a market. Nearby. That will give us a chance to observe. It's all we can do. I keep trying to think of the proper precautions to take, but for once in my life I can't seem to forget I can't use magic," she finished miserably.
"Before anything," said Snape, grabbing his bag, "Let us test the potions theory."
"You brought potions?" Ron asked.
Harry held his breath but Snape ignored Ron, opting for a fleeting glare instead of a biting remark, and procured a tube of pale yellow liquid.
Harry flushed. It was the same kind of potion he drank when they'd fucked too hard or too much or never enough.
Snape handed it to him. "Drink."
Harry did, embarrassed that he was accustomed to the chalky taste and trying to remind himself that no one else knew that.
They watched him- then Ron yelped for joy and Hermione smiled.
"What?" Harry asked. He felt a heat around his neck and his voice softened.
"Your bruises are gone," Savage said, nudging him cheerfully. "First bit of good news, I guess."
"What else did you bring?" Ron asked Snape.
Snape was looking at his bag, his finger tracing his chin. "Various healing potions. Some sleeping draught, Veritaserum, PolyJuice, poison, antidotes. A few other things."
Harry wondered if the sleeping draught had been for him.
"Amazing," Hawthorne said. "It is an honor to be on this mission with such a legend, Professor."
Ron and Harry rolled their eyes.
"Another thing I was thinking about last night," Hermione said, "was how the Magik is contained."
They all went silent and looked at Hermione expectantly.
"And?" Ron said.
"Oh, I thought we'd air our theories out first but-" recognition dawned on her face as she observed the looks she was getting. "I suppose not. Alright, well, I have a source- an Unspeakable, that sometimes helps me filch some things from the ministry library that are meant for Department of Mystery eyes only."
"In exchange for what?" There was a line between Ron's eyes.
"Never you mind," Hermione said. "I found some passages about Magik Mortus from a book called Director Tenebrarum. When it's cast, the magic that's being sucked from the surrounding area needs a place to go."
"I thought Mortus means dead. Like the magic is killed."
"If you weren't so devastatingly stupid, Weasley, you'd know that energy cannot die- it can only be transferred. The same is true for magic," Snape said.
Harry had been thinking the same thing as Ron and was now very glad that he hadn't voiced that thought.
Hermione continued while Ron hated Snape with his eyes.
"Precisely, magic can only be transferred. In the beginning, I thought maybe that's what the purple grid was but then that didn't make any sense, especially for a place like this where the spell's been in effect for a longer period of time and the magic without a place to be stored would be unstable. So the grid must be the spell, but the question of where the energy's been transferred still remains. There has to be an object or multiple objects, somewhere, that's holding it all."
"Sort of like Horcruxes?" Ron said, horrified.
"No," Snape said. "Horcruxs hold a slice of a soul and even then the object has to be of some significance to the caster to be powerful enough. An object holding any amount of magic on this scale would have to be much more powerful."
"What could be that powerful?" Savage asked.
"Something elemental," Hermione said. "Earth, air, fire, water."
"Water," Hawthrone said. His gaze was directed at the window.
They looked out. Harry remembered the blackness of the night before. Now it was just two blues- the sky and the sea.
"You think the magic's in the water?" Ron asked. He looked at Hermione.
She shrugged. "It would explain his choice of the bay."
"Is it powerful enough?"
"The North Sea? Yes, I should think so."
"So what if we tried to siphon some of the magic out of the sea?" said Hawthorne.
"It's too dangerous," said Snape. "Unless Director Tenebrarum contained instructions?"
Hermione's head was down, her eyes squinted. She looked up and shook no. "It was mainly theoretical. By the time it was written, it seemed like no one had tried it."
"Therefore it would either be useless or lethal."
No one said anything. Harry felt the dark grip of hopelessness.
"We can go into town- but we shouldn't go into a shop," Snape said. "We shouldn't be anywhere that we can be surrounded. Now that we know a potion is possible with regards to him controlling the muggles, we have to assume that it's something like Peter's Palsy and he could order a hundred of them on us whenever he pleases."
"So we lure him out somehow," Harry said.
"We look for objects?" Hermione sounded doubtful. "He could be using something to syphon the magic out of the water."
Hawthorne nodded. "Could do."
Hermione made a noise of frustration. "What would we even do if we thought we found one?"
Harry spoke on instinct. "Let's just go."
Hermione looked at him and he knew she knew that he was right.
"Without so much as the idea of a plan?" Hawthorne said.
Snape turned his back on them, facing the window.
"Harry's usually right about these things," said Ron.
"We'll be sorry if he isn't."
"Yeah I mean, no offense Harry, but us non-Chosen ones may have a hard time summoning that can-do attitude." Savage couldn't meet his eye when she said that.
Harry looked at the back of Snape's head, they all did. It felt like they were all waiting for his final word.
He spoke. "We don't have time. The most we can do is try to be unpredictable."
"So we go?"
They agreed silently and Savage's feet shifted but she said nothing more to challenge the decision.
Harry went to reach for his coat.
"We should all hold hands."
Everyone turned to look at Snape in disbelief, who'd uttered the command.
"We should hold hands so that if one of us is disappeared or kidnapped through some magical means that's impervious to the spell, no one is alone. Even if they try to take one of us through physical force, it will be harder if we've got a hold of one another."
"Have you lost the plot?" Ron started. "You want us all six to hold hands and skip through town?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Snape snapped. "That would draw too much attention. We'd simply partner up."
Ron glanced around. Harry noticed it too. Hawthorne and Savage, Ron and Hermione- two hetero pairings. One of these things was not like the other. "And two blokes holding hands wouldn't draw attention?"
"Ron!" Hermione punched him in the arm.
"Muggles are further along in that regard," Hawthorne said, looking disdainfully at Ron. "Besides, what could really seem strange in this town, if all of them are like cry baby lobby boy?" He seemed to say this begrudgingly.
They all agreed. Harry and Snape put on their jackets and gathered their things. Hawthorne and Savage led the charge, clasping hands as they entered the corridor. Harry and Severus took the middle. Harry placed his hand in Severus's calloused palm from behind, crossing elbows.
"Everyone loaded?" Ron asked, revealing the gun under his coat. "I think that's what muggles call it."
They nodded and left the room, free hands on their guns and horror in their hearts at what it might mean to need it. When they were down in the lobby, it was totally silent. Roger was nowhere to be seen and neither were any other guests.
They all stopped before the exit to look at one another and then walked out into the day.
The sea gleamed on their right and their other side was the road in the clifface. It was precluded by a small set of stairs, which they climbed together and began their walk uphill. Harry noticed that though it was high tide, there were several fishing boats drawn out onto the narrow strip of sand and abandoned.
The sun was out for the first time in what seemed like forever and it was unseasonably warm. Harry even very nearly broke a sweat before they reached the plateau of the village, unzipping his jacket to catch a breeze. They walked along the edge of the town, still seeing no one, turned onto a residential street at the edge of the map so they weren't boxed in by houses and followed Hawthorne's lead.
Harry for a moment let himself be fooled by the deceptive comfort of the moment. The sun on his skin, Snape's warm hand in his, glimpses of glittering sea between the buildings; their slow walk which was delayed with caution that he could pretend was aimlessness.
But he didn't need to pretend. Because if they survived this, maybe this was something he could really have. The hope of last night and the stolen moment in the bathroom rose in his mind and he tried not to smile at the ground.
"Oi," Hermione whispered. Harry turned his ear toward her. "Be careful. You're really close to making that look natural," she muttered. He looked at her over his shoulder and she nodded at his and Snape's clasped hands.
Harry and Severus both looked down at their hands and then at each other. She was right. He looked away from Severus and tried to stiffen his arm visibly. His fantasy could be a reality but only if he focused, if he survived, and not least important to that was no one finding out what he and Snape really were to each other. He felt stupid for this hope, but hoped, still.
They walked a little further through narrow streets into the town and then the buildings parted away into an open square. There was a church on the northern street, a windy stone staircase leading up to its big knocker door. Otherwise, the square was full of shops and oddly enough- people.
They all moved their backs against the wall and froze.
The people looked normal. Kids with parents, couples, the elderly. A broad, vanilla swath of life.
Ron tugged his jacket. "Look," he whispered.
He nodded to the spot across the square, where people were sitting on the staircase that went up to the church.
"What am I looking at?
"That woman in the red jacket. Just keep looking at her."
Harry did. She was middle aged, seemingly alone. She kept looking around as if she was waiting for someone. And then her legs stretched out along the stairs below her and she crossed her ankles.
Then she uncrossed her ankles and looked around, again. In the same exact way she had done a moment before. Then she crossed her ankles.
"Is she- stuck? Doing the same thing?"
"Could be a side effect of the potion," Snape said. "Perhaps if the brewer is not giving enough instruction, they might repeat the last one they were given and be locked in a command."
"Really?
"It's just a theory. I can't be sure."
"It makes sense," Hermione said. "If he's given it to too many people to give instructions to everyone at once…"
They simultaneously made the observation none of them wanted to make.
All around the square people were locked. Harry focused on the children, watching the younger ones first. A little blonde boy on a bench next to what looked like a grandparent pointed to an ice cream sign across the way, over and over. Two older children, apparently on their own near a hardware store, were practicing the same handshake on a loop. All the while, the person closest to them- an older teenager most probably- was reading a placard posted on a corner building and shifting his weight on his feet.
"Holy shit," Ron said.
"Let's move."
They moved, walking almost in a line together. Ron was behind him, but the back of Harry's neck prickled and in his imagination everyone in the square had been pretending not to see them and were staring at them now that their backs were turned.
The lane was emptier than the square, for which Harry was thankful. If he had to watch one more stuck person he thought he might do something impulsive.
Snape held his hand tighter, as if he'd heard the thought. Harry scowled. He knew it probably wasn't probable without eye contact, but he still resented it.
They were passing by the grocery store. The door to the market was an old one, with a bell that rang at the top. Harry dodged the trash bin along the wall but Ron seemed to be distracted and walked into it. It toppled to the concrete with a crash and Harry's face flattened momentarily in Snape's back as Ron pushed into him from behind.
Everyone in the lane turned to look at Hermione, Ron, Harry, Snape, Hawthorne, and Savage.
They stopped moving. A record playing life-noise seemed to stop. The stares weren't aggressive, not even were they particularly conscious, but it made Harry feel like someone was taking hold of his whole spine.
Then they all looked away at once and resumed their activity. Or pretend activity, as Harry presumed it would be if he could bring himself to really look again.
"I hate this place with my whole bloody soul," Ron said.
Harry shifted his shoulders to get the chill out of his back.
Hermione tugged at his sleeve.
"I know her," she said, nodding to the window of the grocery store. A row of cash registers was visible. Hermione didn't point, but Harry knew who she must be talking about quickly because the woman in question had on muggle clothes that were slightly outdated in that oblivious way that witches and wizards often had when dressing themselves up as muggles. She looked slightly older than them, with deep, red-colored hair that looked like straw and a thin mouth. "It's Mathilda Grimblehawk. We work in the same department. She took leave a month ago and said she didn't know when she'd be back."
"I can tap the window, to get her attention."
"Me and Savage will take behind."
They crossed the lane, Hawthorne, Savage, and Snape facing the foot traffic and Harry, Ron, and Hermione pulling them across the way to the windows.
"Mathilda," Hermione whispered, tapping the window with a finger. She looked around nervously after.
Mathilda wasn't with a customer but still seemed not to hear or notice Hermione.
Hermione tried tapping again louder.
Mathilda's response was subtle, but sure. She moved her head as if to glance at Hermione said, "Sh,"clearly whipping her back as if she'd only moved it to look casually this way or that. Then she shifted to put her back to them and appeared to be examining her nails.
Harry noticed a muggle man watching them through the glass.
"Let's keep moving," he said. He took Hermione by the elbow and they kept walking.
"Excuse me, sir."
It was a small, high voice that terrified Harry before he looked at her. She was little- not more than five years old.
Snape pulled him back.
Her hair was brown and her gray eyes were glossy, unseeing.
Hawthorne and Savage shifted to circle her other side, their backs only partially blocked by a pillar in the face of the building.
"Yes?" Harry responded.
"Eamon wants to see you."
"Who is Eamon?" Snape asked.
The little girl didn't answer.
"Harry?" Hermione whispered.
Harry swallowed, his stomach plummeting- but when his eyes found her, she was fine. Her and Ron were looking at the little girl.
"Who is Eamon?" Harry tried this time.
"He's the bald man," the little girl said. She used her shoulder to itch her ear. "He wants to speak to you. Alone. He said if you don't come, he'll kill me."
Snape's grip on his hand became vice-like.
"No." Snape's voice was taut.
Harry put his hand over Snape's, looking at him, attempting to unclasp his fingers. "Relax." This had been the plan, hadn't it? Bait.
Severus's thoughts pushed into his mind.
He didn't care if the little girl died.
Harry recoiled. "Severus," he said and tried again to pull his hand free.
The girl spoke again. "He wants you, too," she said, looking at Snape. Then she turned, and pointed to Hermione. "And her."
Ron stiffened. Hermione turned to him and they began whispering to each other.
"He's not going to hurt you. He doesn't kill magical people," the girl told Harry.
His brain was misfiring. He was trying to make sense of it. Him and Severus were half-bloods and Hermione was a muggle-born. Could that have something to do with it?
The girl interrupted his thoughts. "He won't hurt you," she said again. "But he'll hurt me." She said it with unnatural ease. Harry felt, for a moment, like he was talking to Eamon instead of a little girl.
There didn't seem to be a choice. Snape seemed calmer about the prospect now that they'd be together. Harry looked at Hawthorne, Savage, and Hermione in turn before he agreed, but there didn't seem to be much they could say to each other in the presence of someone clearly with a direct line to their captor.
So they let her lead them outside the shop. Ron attempted to follow but the little girl wouldn't move until he stopped. Hawthorne and Savage stepped in front of him to keep him calm, but he kicked another trash bin, this time on purpose, in his fury and cursed as they walked away.
Harry took Hermione's hand with his free one and they walked. Hermione didn't look back, even as they heard more commotion, Ron's stirring calls.
The little girl took them down into the winding residential roads around the square, where it felt colder away from the sun and where the breeze could pick up and tunnel in their faces. Rows of seemingly endless doors and little pubs or shops nestled in between- Ye Dolphin and Fisherman's Trolley and Smuggler's Bistro.
The girl was small, and she walked so much slower than the natural pace of the adults behind her. Harry often found himself close enough to her back that he could see the hair tie in her ponytail, the lavender little plastic unicorn attached to it.
Then she stopped abruptly. The door was gray. She pushed and it opened for her.
It was a family house but it felt like the family was on vacation. Sofa, television, staircase. Kitchen, cupboards, a light coming from across the floor- there was a den further along, with big windows.
They were frozen by the door and the girl walked on. She reached the kitchen and turned to address them.
"Come on."
Severus placed himself in front of Harry, letting go of his hand, leaving no time to argue as he walked ahead. Hermione was beside him and on their way to the kitchen Harry attempted to pinch the back of Snape's jacket to pull him back to keep time with them. Severus pulled away.
There was a cupboard by the oven. The door was painted green and had loads of stickers on it- a disembodied tongue licking ice cream, a monkey rolling down a hill.
The girl took the old tarnished handle in her little palm and opened it, revealing it wasn't a cupboard at all, but a staircase that led down into a basement.
It was stone and damp but got warmer as they descended, a fire burning radiantly. The girl turned when she got to the bottom of the stairs and walked in Harry's direction, facing something he couldn't see.
Then they were face to face, feet planted on even ground, in sight, Eamon. It was clearly him. His cloak looked more like a monk's shroud than a proper wizard's robe and he was pale, plump, scarred, as Harry remembered him from flashes he'd seen in the trees near Hogsmeade.
Behind him, in the better light of the fire that was glowing in a pillar on its own, was a man Harry didn't know. He was average height with short, salt and pepper hair and an unremarkable face except it had the air of looking much older than it was supposed to.
Eamon came at him suddenly. Harry's head wrenched to the side as the man took a fistfull of his hair. He looked at Hermione and Snape from down the cragged blade of a knife he knew. Sirius's knife. Disfigured and with the unreal quality that something takes when it's been lost from your universe for a long time. Looking at the faces just past it was like having his heart living outside of himself.
The warning. "I'll slit his throat."
No one moved.
Then he pulled Harry's sleeve up and sliced down his forearm.
He felt the directness of the beating in his chest to the flow of blood out of him. Breath seemed to also quicken it. It slid warm and caught in the parts between his fingers. The dripping to the floor was inconsistent, measured chaotic.
Eamon dragged him toward the fire. Then Harry understood- it was fiendfyre. The demon was twisting his arm thoughtlessly to get his blood over it, practically wringing the wound, but Harry could hardly feel it. The fire was taking the shape like that of a snake that had just eaten a mouse around his blood.
He was looking closely at Eamon's face in the fire. It was blank and round, like a plate.
"Harry, don't let it touch you!" Hermione.
A flicker of distaste passed around Eamon's mouth as he listened to Hermione speak, which Harry thought was what made him do it. His free hand went for Eamon's formless mouth, clawed at it. When Eamon let go of his other arm to fend him off, Harry clawed with two hands, smeared blood all over the plate face and felt the skin under his nails.
Then the other man held him from behind, but he tried to kick still. Eamon was screaming, and he found his wits enough to slash the knife again in front of Harry.
But then he stopped, breathing heavy. They all did. It was clear Eamon couldn't use magic, as confusing as the fiendfyre was, otherwise they'd all be Stunned or paralyzed. But they weren't.
Harry was breathing hard, thinking hard. Snape could kill, with his bare hands. At that very moment he looked like he was resisting the urge. But Hermione? He, himself? They were outnumbered 1 murderer to 2.
"It's done!" Eamon burst. "It's done. We move."
The man holding Harry pulled him up, Harry's neck in his elbow, a chokehold. They led the way out of the basement. Snape and Hermione falling out of his sight made him nauseous and it was all he could think about even as he was reminded the little girl was still in the room at the sight of her, shaking and staring at the floor behind him.
He saw the shadows on the wall from the fire and felt the heat of it follow him. Harry struggled one more time in the threshold to the outside with the man holding him and felt for the second time in 2 days what it was like to suffocate. When he came too, Hermione was screaming.
"Harry, stop." Snape's voice, deep and dark.
Promises, promises. Gun in the holster, knife on his ankle. Would he pull it off, in the end? Did he know what he was doing or was he buying time? Harry tried to put himself in their shoes. Was Hermione thinking of running and getting the others? Was Severus thinking of how to shoot two people quickly, one after the other, and what the chances were that he could manage that without practice?
Harry gave up struggling but the man kept a grip on him that bordered on suffocation nonetheless, making Harry want to dig his nails in, which made it worse sometimes. They walked. The fiendfyre felt hotter by the minute.
Climbing out of the residential streets, lane after lane, up and up, toward the top of the clifface. A thousand things hurt him. The thought of where Ron could be, the closeness of this stranger.
The homes got sparser and the wind was stronger, burning their eyes. They reached a car park. Lanterns, unlit, lined it and exactly one car was parked, green with a rusty under belly.
It was hard to see straight ahead with the grip on his neck, but sometimes when the man was readjusting him, Harry could see ahead of them. There was a yellow field of dying grass and the sky ahead; the sea, below.
There were objects, in and out of his vision, on the edge of the cliff that were impossible to determine until the back of his knees were kicked in and he was on the ground, hands in the dirt.
The Veil, a few meters in front of him. Translucent curtain beating to its own timeless rhythm, out of sync with the wind. To the right, a stone "o", the space big enough for someone twice his height. To the left, Eamon was standing, holding the fiendfyre on a pike, the pillar of it growing like a tower into the clouds. Muggles, two of them, were digging into the ground with their hands, hunched like animals. Harry watched them with a sick fascination, wondering if they'd keep doing it until they were sweating when-
He heard a grunt behind him and he looked back.
Somewhere along the way, Eamon had gathered more people. Roger was one of them, with Snape in his grip and a woman Harry didn't recognize holding Hermione. They'd both been knelt in the dirt like he had, their hands tied behind their backs.
The woman holding Hermione held her by the back of the neck and pushed her forehead into the ground, Hermione's resistance the only thing saving her from a crack in the head.
"Let go of her!"
The woman's hands were all over Hermione's body and then under her jacket. She found the gun, but her eyes were bored. She fumbled with it as she tried to pull it out from the holster, from under her clothes. Hermione was leaning to one side and keeping very still.
A shot cracked the air.
Hermione screamed, her leg suddenly steeped in blood.
Harry began to crawl toward her.
Then Snape and Roger were moving, slightly.
Harry was wrenched back by familiar hands.
Snape was looking up at Roger from the ground, talking to him. Harry couldn't hear anything except Hermione's cries, and the wind beating his face. He punched and kicked until he was sat on top of, his mouth full of dirt, held down, tied with a grinding string like floss.
Then pulled up right again, facing the edge of the cliff. Eamon was sticking the pike of fiendfyre in the hole in the ground, the muggles bending at his foot to pile the dirt up and pack it.
"You first, Severus. Fyre for you."
Rustling, like sheets. Another shot whipping the wind.
Snape's face, misted with blood.
"Clever but not clever enough. They're desperate to die, so keep them busy or they might find a way."
The two digging muggles ran straight off the cliff.
"They don't die because I tell them to die. They die to be free."
Snape's gaze on Roger, in a heap beside him.
"They don't fight for life. Death compels them. It's ease from the mire and in their nature."
The sky was morbidly clear and the sun touched everything.
"A good way to begin the poem of calamity was to prove that- it's what the veil was for."
"That's what this is about?" Snape's voice, roaring and carried by the wind. "A calamity?"
"Yes," Eamon said. "And fyre for you."
He walked toward Snape. Snape grabbed the gun from Roger's dead hands and pointed it at him.
A blade pressed into the pulse point under Harry's chin.
Eamon spoke again. "Blood of the cured. Blood of the burdened. Blood of the bond."
The fyre lapped at the stake and ignited the earth. It was a line in the grass, lengthening death, headed for Severus.
Severus was moving out of its reach when Harry's gaze was torn by dirt flying up into his face, shots firing.
"GRIM!"
Harry was pulled back in the man's panic, his neck compressed again.
"Come together and what thou give, give again."
He seized the chaos. He got his chin down, under his man's arm. He bit, hard, and tasted blood.
"GRIM, NO!"
A yowl and he was free. He turned to see Ron, Hawthorne, Savage, and maybe a hundred others running toward them on the cliff.
"Thrice fed, thrice sped."
Bodies. Closing in on his captor, closing in on all of them.
Two bodies each for him and Hermione, dragging Harry toward the veil, dragging her toward the hole. He dug his heels in and took his jacket off, slipping out of their grip. He ran to Hermione when she did the same, held her hand. Then they were wrenched again, an endless parade of muggles to dodge, claw, chew. Ron and the others were facing them, battling their own bodies, trying to tear them apart or embrace them or just stop them from carrying on, it wasn't clear. Sometimes he could see everything, when he was being carried, sometimes only slivers of sky between shirt sleeves when he was being smothered under an armpit or dragged.
Ron yelled Hermione's name. Harry couldn't hear where it was coming from because Ron was buried somewhere in an anchor of humans.
The absence of Severus's voice from the clamor dawned on him like death, the truth of it- the smell of sulfuric egg or a distant flower; the call of a beloved name in the wind or silence.
Then the heat of fire- fiendfyre.
Harry's eyes found Severus. He was on the raised dias, looking at Eamon. The fyre had left a trail in his wake and the muggles pulling Harry and Hermione caught fire in the flame, themselves just falling away from burning hands in time to avoid being eaten by it.
Shots vibrating the air. Ron, Hawthrone, and Savage were firing into the air, which seemed to dismantle the control Palsy had over them momentarily before some were stuck under it again or finding death willingly in the fyre.
Hermione held fast to a little girl going that way, covered her eyes from the burning flesh.
Eamon and Severus were locked in a gaze.
There was a line of fyre between them, edging back and forth between them.
Eamon broke eye contact and Snape lost control.
Harry saw the next muggle coming for him and moved back to get a running start over the fire.
He ran, jumped, caught heat on his ankle and couldn't stand up on the other side.
He saw Snape's gaze upsidedown and if there had been room for anything more in him except excrutiating pain, he'd be afraid or think that that look of terror and rage meant Snape had been telling the truth.
Harry screamed in pain.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Snape roared, moving down the dias, evading the fire.
"YOU DON'T NEED EYE CONTACT!" Harry yelled, before he could think about how making coherent word sounds made the pain worse, somehow, drew the fyre up his skin like it wanted to eat his words.
The flames shot from his leg into the grass without hesitation, rounding him and climbing up and away out of his line of sight.
The smell of burning flesh in the air again, potent, and Eamon crying out desperately.
"NO!" The man called Grim was retrained by Hermione's witch she'd recognized in the store and another person Harry couldn't recognize. They were on the otherside of the ring of fire and they whispered things into Grim's ear.
When Harry turned, Eamon was nothing but a burned corpse. A yellow mist was crawling up from under the clifface and covering the ground. It steered clear of the veil. Harry tried to scramble away from it at first, but then the cool of it was around his leg, like a salve and he almost fell on his back in surrender.
But Snape was still on the dias, and he was looking toward the veil. Who was calling?
"Severus!" Harry called. The susration of his heart was in his ear.
Snape looked at him. There was nothing clear in his expression. He pulled his wand from his robe, waved it in a big circle above his head, a wordless spell.
The fyre died.
Snape ran toward him and only then did Harry collapse back, finally submitting to the burn. He was hyperventilating, which he perpherially found very embarrassing.
The warmth of magic on his leg made him hiss. It was mindblowing, the whole-body feel of it, the way he could sense the air underneath his skin and brushing bone. Snape was muttering under his breath, long and complex and the more he spoke, the more pain Harry was in. He cried out, tried to move away from Snape.
"Hold still," Snape hissed.
"Are you healing me," Harry gasped, "or killing me?"
"Shut up, I need to concentrate."
For as long as Harry could keep his eyes open, he looked around them.
The muggles were strawn around the field, like disoriented moles out of the ground. One of them was-
"Holy fucking shit!" Harry cried, sounding whiney even to himself.
Snape used his free hand to hold him down at his chest and kept incanting.
Harry looked to his side again, through grass. He could see Hermione tending to the muggle who'd held her. The blood on her leg hadn't been her own. Hawthorne was gathering the kids, Ron the muggles. Grimblehawk and the man Harry didn't recognize were with Grim, who was on the ground with his head hanging between his knees, inconsolable.
And a swarm of others. Dawlish, the other aurors who'd seen them off on the other side. Ron already starting an argument, complaining about the uselessness of-
"Oh my god," he cried, as his skin pulsed with some new nerve crushing sensation.
"I'm almost done."
Harry observed again through puffing breaths. Savage was arresting Grim.
A healer approached them, then, and Snape gave over. Harry felt the wash of more magic, over his forearm this time, and closed his eyes. A glass was pressed to his lips. He opened and swallowed something oily.
Then he was standing on his own, headed to the cars parked in the part of the field that'd been invisible.
From inside the car, he could see Dawlish over the burned corpse. The Statute of Secrecy was with the muggles and the Unspeakables were with the Veil and the stone ring at the edge.
Someone cast a spell to space out the inside and Severus and Ron and Hermione were piling in next to him.
He pressed his leg to Snape, who pulled away and watched the landscape in the window.