(no subject)
Title: Liberation
Author: CrimsonShinigami
Pairing: Severus Snape x Harry Potter - in the far future. Others are possible too.
Part: 5/?
Words: 12056/50000
Summary: After the loss of the Battle for Hogwarts, all of Britain was thrown into slavery to Voldemort's reign. Working as a Captain in the Resistance, Harry Potter has had to learn to live the hard way, as a fugitive - while earnestly fighting to save lives, and deliver liberty through Voldemort's end. But with more Horcruxes to find, the question of disquiet within the ranks of the Resistance, and his rediscovery by the Wizarding world: is it really going to be as easy as he might hope?
Chapter 5
Harry’s next mission was three days later - but he had to leave a day early to make it to his target for the following night. The attack was in Portsmouth - and they could only travel under darkness. This was the only flaw in their working, of course: Because the opening points of portkeys could be traced, the Resistance didn’t dare to make Portkeys from their hideaways. And thus, several days needed to be taken to travel over distances.
After a long two days of travel, though, Harry and his team had arrived near the target site, and were resting their legs as Harry checked his directions.
Infiltrating Wizards houses during war was not child’s play. Everyone was paranoid that they would be somehow killed in their sleep, have their things stolen, or both. There were hundreds of wards and traps, anti-Muggle defenses - the works. Intelligence teams, comprised of both Wizards and Muggles, were the ones who went about searching for these impossible to find homes. Even then, Harry could not be sure exactly what he was walking into. He could be entering a particularly well protected garden shed, for all he knew; or a Quidditch match.
Harry looked back to the Intelligence reports, and read carefully under the dim light of his wand.
‘Upon approaching the wall between the trees at the back of Hayswood Priory’s Graveyard, Muggle members of the team suddenly realized that they had other things to do, and had to be removed from site. Is suspected entrance. Handle with caution.’
Looking out from where they rested, hidden between a mausoleum and the church itself, Harry could see the gap between the two sets of trees. While the rest of the graveyard was full of stones - this patch looked suspiciously empty. Yes - Harry was sure that it was an entrance to a Wizarding home - now he had merely to break the wards and enter.
“Stay here, and keep watch. Any sign of trouble, get into the belltower, and hold your position against any attack. They might try fire - but I know that they would rather take you alive…Extreme circumstances allow radio calls. An emergency team will respond if you activate the radio…If I get through the wards without trouble, I’ll give the signal. Pay attention. Good luck.”
Harry looked into everyone’s eyes, rested his gaze intently on both Verde and Jules, and then moved away; keeping low and moving in and out of the gravestones.
He was barely visible crossing the grave yard - like a black shadow. And when he came to the wall, he could feel the magic there - and yet… He reached out to touch the stone, and found his hand resting against it. When he went to punch the wall though, moving fast, his hand swept straight through. And there was nothing - no wards - not yet, at least. Harry doubted that the Wizard responsible would only be protecting his house with this trick - but…whatever else there was would be on the other side.
Harry turned to glance back across the graveyard, and then let out a hoot, like a barn owl. Across they came, two at a time, flickering shadows moving from one gravestone to the next, until they were all around him, hidden in the shadows of different stones.
“There’s a single spell here, preventing you from approaching the entrance. I’m going to remove it, and you’ll be able to approach the wall. After that, you’re all going to have to run at the wall to pass through it.”
“Run at the wall? And break our noses?” Gordon murmured, looking up at Harry in confusion.
“It’s an old trick that I’ve come across before, myself. The wall isn’t really there - you just think it is. Beyond…well, I think the spell could physically take us anywhere within a one to ten mile radius. Are you ready?” And then he became distracted, glancing up to see Verde wandering away from the gravestones. He was tackled to the ground, by Jules, and said, quite loud enough for them all to hear: “Left the oven on: gotta get home.”
A few giggles were squashed quite quickly - but even Harry couldn’t help but smile, and he went to work removing the spell that tried to make them all leave. Once done, Harry looked back to Verde. “Still gotta go home, Verde?”
“No, Sir.”
“Harry.”
“Harry, Sir.”
Sighing, Harry shook his head. “Jules - will you give it a shot first. I don’t know if it will work on Muggles…I hope it does, or we’ll have to call off the mission. I can only imagine what Reg will say about us then…”
“Allright, Harry,” she turned towards the wall. “Here I go…”
She ran at the wall, and disappeared straight through it, drawing a gasp from Kate.
“Ready, everyone? Right…I’ll see you on the other side.” And so Harry dived forwards too. He came to a stop when he was through, finding Jules before taking in the surroundings.
Ahead of them was a moat, with an enormous castle build in the center. It was modern, Harry supposed, in comparison to Hogwarts. The walls were whitewashed, and four pristine turrets with red tiled roofs stood at each corner.
Most clearly, though, there seemed to be no obvious way to enter the castle - no bridge in sight to cross the moat.
“Wonderful…a regular Indiana Jones,” Jules said from beside him. Harry glanced towards her, perplexed, and she grinned at him, and explained. “In one of the Indiana Jones films, he has to cross a chasm - only there’s no bridge, no obvious way to get across…”
Jamie and Gordon had just appeared out of the space behind them, and had heard no more than the last part of Jules’ words - but they still knew what she was talking about and promptly butted in. “Turned out there was an invisible bridge crossing the chasm - he just had to have faith in himself to cross it.”
“Right,” said Gordon. “Hey, I didn’t know you were a Harrison Ford fan, Jules.”
An odd thing seemed to happen then: Jules; normally so controlled; flushed to the roots of her hair.
“She’s what?” Harry asked, squinting through the darkness as the two other men laughed. He turned away, sighing in dismay, and looking for the last two members of his team to arrive.
Verde and Kate ran straight into him, knocking him clear onto his back. Their eyes were tightly closed, which was why they’d not noticed that they were through, and hadn’t stopped. Apologizing, Verde helped first Kate to her feet, and then aided his Captain.
“Right,’ Harry mumbled, ruffled, “At least we’re all here now.”
Slightly exhausted from the very exuberance of his team members, Harry moved away from them, rubbing at the back of his neck as he made his way to the edge of the drop. He leant down and picked up a handful of dust, throwing it out in a wide arch around the end of the path. There was nothing - the dirt simply fell all the way down.
Well, it had been worth a try.
Harry was about to turn away when something caught his eye; the corner of a ledge, just in sight when he was standing at full height. He moved right up to the edge, and there it was: a set of stairs leading all the way down the edge of the moat. This meant that the entrance was most likely sub-ground level.
Turning back towards his team, Harry beckoned them forwards. They instantly fell silent again, creeping up towards the edge, and keeping low. Harry moved out onto the ledge and then lifted his hand up to the wall, slowly descending the stairway.
At the bottom he moved his wand in a half circle, reaching out with his senses for any magical signatures. Step by step he approached, placing one foot after another - senses constantly stretched. At the opposite wall of the moat, Harry moved his hands to touch against the wall.
There was nothing there, no door, no secret opening. Search as he might, he could find no sign of an entrance.
As Jules reached him, he allowed himself to curse for her hearing. “This Wizard is so…so fixated on his cleverness, that he doesn’t feel the need for wards to protect him. He’s just well hidden…well protected by his little tricks.”
“But to a logical mind, Harry…” Jules began.
Harry lifted his head and looked around again. “To the logical mind, the best way to hide an entrance is to make it not look like one, Jules. Now…we need the password.”
“Oh Harry, the password could be anything!”
“Nonsense,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Slytherin. Pureblood. Voldemort. Dark Lord. Dark Mark. Er…Arithmancy. Potions. Dark Arts. Avada…” But already the wall was opening up before them. Had ‘Potions’, or ‘Dark Arts’ been the password? It was impossible to say. None the less, Harry moved cautiously forwards, leading his team after him.
“Once I get the wards down inside the dungeons, Jules, I’m going to sneak up to the library. Get everyone back to the woods outside the Priory and follow them south in the direction of the Portsmouth safe house. If I get out safely, I’ll intercept you, and get us back home.”
“All this for a book, Harry?”
“A potions book, Jules. With a proper potions book, I can brew life saving remedies…”
“But Harry…”
Harry shook his head, silencing her. “I’m doing this, Jules. I’ll be in and out like a flash. I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
“I hope so, Harry…” Jules murmured, though already Harry was moving ahead of her again, making his way deeper into the darkness, with his wand lit dimly before him.
Harry had no idea, this time, exactly where the dungeons ought to be. Logically, they ought to be low in the building - and so they would be - but Harry could not be sure what the catch would be. He assumed, therefore, that he would have to climb up in order to go down. He hated logic problems - Hermione had always been better at them to him. Still, he tiptoed over every floor before deciding which way he ought to be going, and through some incredible fluke managed to find his way, locating a long, spiral stone stairway that felt cold, and had a musty air.
At the bottom of the stairway, lo and behold, were the dungeons. There were no obvious defenses - but Harry made his way slowly through the room nonetheless, checking for secret rooms before finally deciding to go elsewhere. He stepped out of the way to let Jules past. “We ought to come out of the building at a similar time, considering the distance… Jules, just be careful - keep them quiet, and keep away from the upstairs bedrooms.”
Jules nodded, and kissed Harry briefly on the cheek before letting him go.
The library, however, was not as easy to find as the dungeons. It turned out to be on the first floor; but as Harry entered the room, he realized he had made an awful mistake. In the center of the room, the fire was cracking merrily, and candles lit up the silhouette of a figure with a book in his lap, and a wand in his hand: pointed straight towards Harry.
And bed.
Author: CrimsonShinigami
Pairing: Severus Snape x Harry Potter - in the far future. Others are possible too.
Part: 5/?
Words: 12056/50000
Summary: After the loss of the Battle for Hogwarts, all of Britain was thrown into slavery to Voldemort's reign. Working as a Captain in the Resistance, Harry Potter has had to learn to live the hard way, as a fugitive - while earnestly fighting to save lives, and deliver liberty through Voldemort's end. But with more Horcruxes to find, the question of disquiet within the ranks of the Resistance, and his rediscovery by the Wizarding world: is it really going to be as easy as he might hope?
Chapter 5
Harry’s next mission was three days later - but he had to leave a day early to make it to his target for the following night. The attack was in Portsmouth - and they could only travel under darkness. This was the only flaw in their working, of course: Because the opening points of portkeys could be traced, the Resistance didn’t dare to make Portkeys from their hideaways. And thus, several days needed to be taken to travel over distances.
After a long two days of travel, though, Harry and his team had arrived near the target site, and were resting their legs as Harry checked his directions.
Infiltrating Wizards houses during war was not child’s play. Everyone was paranoid that they would be somehow killed in their sleep, have their things stolen, or both. There were hundreds of wards and traps, anti-Muggle defenses - the works. Intelligence teams, comprised of both Wizards and Muggles, were the ones who went about searching for these impossible to find homes. Even then, Harry could not be sure exactly what he was walking into. He could be entering a particularly well protected garden shed, for all he knew; or a Quidditch match.
Harry looked back to the Intelligence reports, and read carefully under the dim light of his wand.
‘Upon approaching the wall between the trees at the back of Hayswood Priory’s Graveyard, Muggle members of the team suddenly realized that they had other things to do, and had to be removed from site. Is suspected entrance. Handle with caution.’
Looking out from where they rested, hidden between a mausoleum and the church itself, Harry could see the gap between the two sets of trees. While the rest of the graveyard was full of stones - this patch looked suspiciously empty. Yes - Harry was sure that it was an entrance to a Wizarding home - now he had merely to break the wards and enter.
“Stay here, and keep watch. Any sign of trouble, get into the belltower, and hold your position against any attack. They might try fire - but I know that they would rather take you alive…Extreme circumstances allow radio calls. An emergency team will respond if you activate the radio…If I get through the wards without trouble, I’ll give the signal. Pay attention. Good luck.”
Harry looked into everyone’s eyes, rested his gaze intently on both Verde and Jules, and then moved away; keeping low and moving in and out of the gravestones.
He was barely visible crossing the grave yard - like a black shadow. And when he came to the wall, he could feel the magic there - and yet… He reached out to touch the stone, and found his hand resting against it. When he went to punch the wall though, moving fast, his hand swept straight through. And there was nothing - no wards - not yet, at least. Harry doubted that the Wizard responsible would only be protecting his house with this trick - but…whatever else there was would be on the other side.
Harry turned to glance back across the graveyard, and then let out a hoot, like a barn owl. Across they came, two at a time, flickering shadows moving from one gravestone to the next, until they were all around him, hidden in the shadows of different stones.
“There’s a single spell here, preventing you from approaching the entrance. I’m going to remove it, and you’ll be able to approach the wall. After that, you’re all going to have to run at the wall to pass through it.”
“Run at the wall? And break our noses?” Gordon murmured, looking up at Harry in confusion.
“It’s an old trick that I’ve come across before, myself. The wall isn’t really there - you just think it is. Beyond…well, I think the spell could physically take us anywhere within a one to ten mile radius. Are you ready?” And then he became distracted, glancing up to see Verde wandering away from the gravestones. He was tackled to the ground, by Jules, and said, quite loud enough for them all to hear: “Left the oven on: gotta get home.”
A few giggles were squashed quite quickly - but even Harry couldn’t help but smile, and he went to work removing the spell that tried to make them all leave. Once done, Harry looked back to Verde. “Still gotta go home, Verde?”
“No, Sir.”
“Harry.”
“Harry, Sir.”
Sighing, Harry shook his head. “Jules - will you give it a shot first. I don’t know if it will work on Muggles…I hope it does, or we’ll have to call off the mission. I can only imagine what Reg will say about us then…”
“Allright, Harry,” she turned towards the wall. “Here I go…”
She ran at the wall, and disappeared straight through it, drawing a gasp from Kate.
“Ready, everyone? Right…I’ll see you on the other side.” And so Harry dived forwards too. He came to a stop when he was through, finding Jules before taking in the surroundings.
Ahead of them was a moat, with an enormous castle build in the center. It was modern, Harry supposed, in comparison to Hogwarts. The walls were whitewashed, and four pristine turrets with red tiled roofs stood at each corner.
Most clearly, though, there seemed to be no obvious way to enter the castle - no bridge in sight to cross the moat.
“Wonderful…a regular Indiana Jones,” Jules said from beside him. Harry glanced towards her, perplexed, and she grinned at him, and explained. “In one of the Indiana Jones films, he has to cross a chasm - only there’s no bridge, no obvious way to get across…”
Jamie and Gordon had just appeared out of the space behind them, and had heard no more than the last part of Jules’ words - but they still knew what she was talking about and promptly butted in. “Turned out there was an invisible bridge crossing the chasm - he just had to have faith in himself to cross it.”
“Right,” said Gordon. “Hey, I didn’t know you were a Harrison Ford fan, Jules.”
An odd thing seemed to happen then: Jules; normally so controlled; flushed to the roots of her hair.
“She’s what?” Harry asked, squinting through the darkness as the two other men laughed. He turned away, sighing in dismay, and looking for the last two members of his team to arrive.
Verde and Kate ran straight into him, knocking him clear onto his back. Their eyes were tightly closed, which was why they’d not noticed that they were through, and hadn’t stopped. Apologizing, Verde helped first Kate to her feet, and then aided his Captain.
“Right,’ Harry mumbled, ruffled, “At least we’re all here now.”
Slightly exhausted from the very exuberance of his team members, Harry moved away from them, rubbing at the back of his neck as he made his way to the edge of the drop. He leant down and picked up a handful of dust, throwing it out in a wide arch around the end of the path. There was nothing - the dirt simply fell all the way down.
Well, it had been worth a try.
Harry was about to turn away when something caught his eye; the corner of a ledge, just in sight when he was standing at full height. He moved right up to the edge, and there it was: a set of stairs leading all the way down the edge of the moat. This meant that the entrance was most likely sub-ground level.
Turning back towards his team, Harry beckoned them forwards. They instantly fell silent again, creeping up towards the edge, and keeping low. Harry moved out onto the ledge and then lifted his hand up to the wall, slowly descending the stairway.
At the bottom he moved his wand in a half circle, reaching out with his senses for any magical signatures. Step by step he approached, placing one foot after another - senses constantly stretched. At the opposite wall of the moat, Harry moved his hands to touch against the wall.
There was nothing there, no door, no secret opening. Search as he might, he could find no sign of an entrance.
As Jules reached him, he allowed himself to curse for her hearing. “This Wizard is so…so fixated on his cleverness, that he doesn’t feel the need for wards to protect him. He’s just well hidden…well protected by his little tricks.”
“But to a logical mind, Harry…” Jules began.
Harry lifted his head and looked around again. “To the logical mind, the best way to hide an entrance is to make it not look like one, Jules. Now…we need the password.”
“Oh Harry, the password could be anything!”
“Nonsense,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Slytherin. Pureblood. Voldemort. Dark Lord. Dark Mark. Er…Arithmancy. Potions. Dark Arts. Avada…” But already the wall was opening up before them. Had ‘Potions’, or ‘Dark Arts’ been the password? It was impossible to say. None the less, Harry moved cautiously forwards, leading his team after him.
“Once I get the wards down inside the dungeons, Jules, I’m going to sneak up to the library. Get everyone back to the woods outside the Priory and follow them south in the direction of the Portsmouth safe house. If I get out safely, I’ll intercept you, and get us back home.”
“All this for a book, Harry?”
“A potions book, Jules. With a proper potions book, I can brew life saving remedies…”
“But Harry…”
Harry shook his head, silencing her. “I’m doing this, Jules. I’ll be in and out like a flash. I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
“I hope so, Harry…” Jules murmured, though already Harry was moving ahead of her again, making his way deeper into the darkness, with his wand lit dimly before him.
Harry had no idea, this time, exactly where the dungeons ought to be. Logically, they ought to be low in the building - and so they would be - but Harry could not be sure what the catch would be. He assumed, therefore, that he would have to climb up in order to go down. He hated logic problems - Hermione had always been better at them to him. Still, he tiptoed over every floor before deciding which way he ought to be going, and through some incredible fluke managed to find his way, locating a long, spiral stone stairway that felt cold, and had a musty air.
At the bottom of the stairway, lo and behold, were the dungeons. There were no obvious defenses - but Harry made his way slowly through the room nonetheless, checking for secret rooms before finally deciding to go elsewhere. He stepped out of the way to let Jules past. “We ought to come out of the building at a similar time, considering the distance… Jules, just be careful - keep them quiet, and keep away from the upstairs bedrooms.”
Jules nodded, and kissed Harry briefly on the cheek before letting him go.
The library, however, was not as easy to find as the dungeons. It turned out to be on the first floor; but as Harry entered the room, he realized he had made an awful mistake. In the center of the room, the fire was cracking merrily, and candles lit up the silhouette of a figure with a book in his lap, and a wand in his hand: pointed straight towards Harry.
And bed.