(no subject)
Title: Liberation
Author: CrimsonShinigami
Pairing: Severus Snape x Harry Potter - in the far future. Others are possible too.
Part: 7/?
Words: 16288/50000
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 7
Harry and his team appeared within a few whirling seconds, coming to a stop in the dark room where they had arrived last time. Teams of people were ready, waiting to help with the arriving rescued people, but when they saw that Harry was empty handed they all dispersed instantly, not wanting to be a part of the trouble that he would no doubt be in.
It was amidst this confusion of leaving people that Horatio arrived, looking panicked and forlorn. “Harry.”
Lifting his head wearily, Harry found the scared man’s gaze, and moved forwards to touch him on the shoulder. “What is it? What’s happened, Horatio?”
“I…I…the night after you left…”
Horatio paused here, to gulp in a breath. “They took Hermione. They took her away, and got her lost. They said that…that they spotted her wandering towards the direction of Stonehenge, and…they said that she was obviously mad, and that she’d escaped on her own. But Harry…Hermione knew she was safe here. They must have done it.”
It took a moment for this to sink in, and Harry, who was utterly exhausted, did not waste time in charging straight towards the exit, followed by Horatio and Jules. He couldn’t leave Hermione out there, and if he left now, just as morning began to open, he might have a chance of finding Hermione. Oh, but it was dangerous out in the daylight - you could be spotted, and then your life would be in danger, or worse.
For the most part, Harry was terrified that Snape’s threat would be coming to ground sooner rather than later. He had always been quick - with hand and with wit, and he would have needed to tell the Dark Lord that it had been Harry Potter who had forced him to leave his home. Oh yes…
Right now, Harry needed to get outside. But when he came to the gate, he found someone already waiting for them.
“I thought you’d be trying to head out, Potter,” Reg purred, his eyes narrowing with glee. “You don’t have permission to leave.”
Harry was in no state to wait on Reg’s distractions. “I don’t care if I have permission to leave or not,” he hissed. “You made Hermione leave, and I am going to go and recover her.”
Reg moved forwards, motioning towards the shadows, where Leela’s team came to join him. “Subordination! I’ll have you thrown away for this, Potter! I’ve been waiting for a very long time…”
Without even thinking about what he was doing, Harry drew his wand and pointed it straight at Reg’s heart, his green eyes glittering like Avada Kedavra itself. “Get the hell out of my way, Reg. Or I will kill you. You’re no better than that Death Eater scum that hunts us.”
“You leave, Potter,” Reg growled, though there was fear in his dark eyes, “And you aren’t coming back.”
“I wouldn’t want to come back. Don’t make me tell you to move again, Reg.”
Reg smirked, moving to step out of the way - but a raucous from further down the hall made him pause in midstep. Old Krone came tearing out of the shadows, a pair of captains behind him.
“Potter…we need to know what happened on your last mission, and we need to know now. We just received warning calls from Scotland, Portsmouth, Wales, London, Cambridge, Oxford, Chester, Liverpool…wizards in the air - hundreds of them - their lackies covering the ground…”
Harry’s jaw set as he looked towards Reg, then back towards Krone. “They’re looking for us. Give the call to lock down, conceal all exits. Whatever you do, don’t go above ground until it settles down.” He stepped past Reg, but was stopped again by Krone.
“Harry, in a lock down, I can’t permit you to leave.”
“I’ll either get captured, Mike, or I’ll find a way to draw their attention away from you. I’ll be heading towards London in the long term. You have to understand…Hermione is my the last living reminder of my childhood - before all this started. She means so much to me…”
Krone sighed, and lifted his hand to rub at his forehead. “Allright…go be the hero, Harry - but be careful.”
“I will. Hold the fort, Krone - and make sure this…” He turned to scowl at Reg, “This traitorous arsehole doesn’t endanger more lives. Because if I ever find out… He didn’t go on, but he did look worriedly back towards his old friend. “Hide well.”
“Good luck, Harry. Close up before you leave, eh?”
“I’ll need it,” Harry replied, drolly, making his way out of the door, closing it behind him. With the help of Jules and Horatio, they worked on the exit, covering it with ferns and rocks, so as to conceal it. When Harry was quite satisfied with this, he used a low level spell to ward away people who might come to the entrance. Low level spells, after all, were undetectable, and it would do a lot to protect the people within.
They hadn’t taken long, and Harry led away into the woods, in the direction of the coast. He wasn’t pleased with this direction: the coastline was open, and it was in the opposite direction to London - but at least in this direction, Harry knew where there was a small safe house full of supplies that they could conceal themselves in overnight.
They walked all morning, searching as far as three people could search without breaking cover, or losing sight of each other. When they stopped, it was mid afternoon, and they were hungry and tired.
Stopping just up the steep bank above a stream, Harry sat exhaustedly on the roots of a tree, and brought one knee up to his chest, letting the other dangle over the bank. “This is impossible…we’re never going to find her before they do.”
Harry sighed, lifting one hand to rub at his eyes. “Let’s share some food before we move on. I’ve still got a little of my travel food left. What about you, Jules?”
Jules sat down beside him, “Plenty. You know how little I eat. Here, I’ll share mine with Horatio.”
“Thanks, Jules,” Harry murmured, unpacking the small box full of rations from his pocket. Tablets, and dehydrated foods, mostly. From his other pocket he produced a flask of water, and he lifted it up and then sighed. “Looks like I’m out. How about you?”
Jules removed her flask from her pocket and tipped it over, flipping the cap off. Nothing. Not a drop inside. Reaching out, Harry snatched it off her. “I’ll go down to the stream and fill them up. Why don’t you two get started?”
He stood up and carefully began to pick his way down the edge of the bank, moving cautiously out from underneath the trees. At the stream he stepped out onto the top of a dry rock and placed the two flasks down next to him.
The water, when he splashed it onto his face, and into his eyes, was cool and clear; it’s scent clean, without a trace of anything dangerous in it. After a few moments of just waking himself up, he took up the flasks again and filled them each in turn. It was just as he closed the cap on the second one that he heard it, the crack of a footstep as it broke a twig.
Deciding better than to call out; Harry rose back to his feet and began to warily move in the direction of the sound. He moved upstream from one stone to the next, carefully avoiding slipping, or splashing.
Another crack, a rustle and a splash, this time followed by an expletive, just around the next meander told him that he was getting close, and he moved back to the bank and climbed up it, carefully inching over the top.
It was all he could do not to cast the Killing Curse on the spot. A member of the Household of Malfoy stood in the stream below, dark green and black house robes swaying in the motion of the water. He was turned away from Harry, but there was no mistaking the girl on her back in the water as being Hermione. “Gotcha, you dirty little…” he growled, loud enough for Harry to hear him.
He turned, and hollered into the forest, and Harry realized with a terrible shock that they must be in the middle of a searching ground. He let out a wild owl’s hoot, which he hoped desperately that Jules and Horatio would hear. The barn owl’s hoot meant hide. The screech owl meant run, and the nightingale meant attack; but right now, he used the barn owl. He needed them safely hidden.
Quickly, Harry edged up the last bit of the slope and clambered under a thick, bristly bush, to watch, and wait for the opportune moment.
“She’s not the same girl we started with,” this was a grumbling growl from the trees, before a large man that Harry recognized vaguely as looking like Crabbe emerged. His dark hair was graying around the edges, and Harry took a double take to make sure it wasn’t Crabbe. No, he was definitely too old; but it could easily be his father.
This suggested that the other man was Goyle’s father, perhaps.
Lo and behold, two mirror versions of the older men stomped noisily out of the forest. It was a surprise to them both to see Hermione, whom they both recognized, even with their pathetic memories.
“That’s Granger!” said Goyle, instantly, and Crabbe nodded, moving to get a better look at the frightened, wide eyed girl in the water.
Harry had just decided that he was going to attack when something was said that turned him to ice from the inside out.
“Where’s Draco?”
Malfoy was here? Malfoy, in this wood? Now? Harry found himself looking over his shoulder, trying to find him, all the while straining to hear from one of the four in the clearing as to where he really was.
“I don’t know. I hate taking instructions from that little twerp…” groused Crabbe Sr. “If his father wasn’t here, I’d probably…”
“Probably what?” This was Lucius Malfoy’s cool voice, from across the stream, and Harry had his first sight of the man for a very long time. His hair was still neat, tied back to protect it for the chase. His eyes, cool blue, except when he was angry, were a hard, steely grey.
Lucius Malfoy was a very patient man, but at this moment, he had just heard a threat against his son. Crabbe Sr. could not have expected less than what he received for being overheard. An instant Crucio brought him down to his knees in the stream.
“What have we here?” Lucius asked after a moment of watching the man switch and scream in Cruciatus, with an air of disinterest about his features. He turned towards Hermione, and carefully stepped closer. “This is not the girl we started out with…”
“It’s Hermione Granger, Sir,” Goyle said, hopefully.
“I can see that. Shut up for a second, Goyle…” Malfoy straightened up, and looked around, eyes narrowing. Harry was, for just a second, utterly convinced that Malfoy could see into the bush where he was hiding, with blue eyes like Mad Eye Moody’s; but when Malfoy didn’t instantly point him out and attack him, he was silently relieved.
“Sir?”
“Severus noted to me once that friends of Harry Potter do not often go where Harry Potter himself is not… If Granger is here…then perhaps Snape is right, and Potter really is alive.”
“He certainly seemed certain last night,” another voice, drawling and familiar; but this one came from right on top of Harry. Draco Malfoy could have been standing no more than a foot away from him, leaning against the tree. Again, Harry had the desperate urge to run; that he could not possibly be hidden well enough for Draco not to see him…
Thankfully, Draco had never seemed to be much of an observer. He stepped away from the tree, walking down the bank to peer at Hermione too. Six wizards in broad daylight! There was little chance of Harry and his friends rescuing Hermione now. If only he’d attacked when it was just Goyle!
“Mudblood,” Draco cajoled, when he laid eyes on Hermione. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on you, ever since this war began.”
Lucius stepped forwards, narrowing his eyes at his son. “I do hope…you wouldn’t consider…”
“Touching a Mudblood?! Father, I’m appalled that you would think so little of me!”
Hermione, obviously, had had quite enough of being talked about; she kicked Draco viciously in the leg and yelled ‘Harry’ furiously at him.
Draco kicked a spray of water and stones at her, viciously and then stepped away, squinting around the clearing. Apparently he could not see Harry, because he shouted. “Don’t worry, Potter! We’ll take good care of her for you! Of course you’re too cowardly to come out and save your friend!”
Digging his nails into the soft earth under the bush, Harry did his best not to react to Draco’s statements. He was trying to enrage him, get him to show his face. But for all Draco knew, Harry might not be there.
Lucius then lifted his voice, and Harry pushed his face down into the dirt to not respond to the older man’s words; because they were about Ron.
“Very well, Potter. If that’s the way that you want to play it,” he said, loud enough for Harry to hear, though if he were any further away, he might have had to listen harder. He wondered… No. Lucius wouldn’t be playing games with him if he knew he was here, would he? “Remember, Potter,” he said, malicious, but smooth. “The last time you were too late to save your friend. Imagine how terrible it would be to lose another. Come Draco, let’s go.”
“What about the Muggle hunt?” This from Crabbe.
Lucius waved his hand, and moved to scoop Hermione out of the water. “One Muggle is of no consequence. The wolves will get her tonight, I have no doubt of it.”
Harry experienced a brief worry on the subject of werewolves, but more important in his mind now was rescuing Hermione; and the fact that this was shaping up to be his walking straight into a trap. A trap set by Malfoy.
Maybe he could die, after all.
Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far. I had a wildly unproductive few days, I'm afraid, but there's more now, so enjoy!
Author: CrimsonShinigami
Pairing: Severus Snape x Harry Potter - in the far future. Others are possible too.
Part: 7/?
Words: 16288/50000
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 7
Harry and his team appeared within a few whirling seconds, coming to a stop in the dark room where they had arrived last time. Teams of people were ready, waiting to help with the arriving rescued people, but when they saw that Harry was empty handed they all dispersed instantly, not wanting to be a part of the trouble that he would no doubt be in.
It was amidst this confusion of leaving people that Horatio arrived, looking panicked and forlorn. “Harry.”
Lifting his head wearily, Harry found the scared man’s gaze, and moved forwards to touch him on the shoulder. “What is it? What’s happened, Horatio?”
“I…I…the night after you left…”
Horatio paused here, to gulp in a breath. “They took Hermione. They took her away, and got her lost. They said that…that they spotted her wandering towards the direction of Stonehenge, and…they said that she was obviously mad, and that she’d escaped on her own. But Harry…Hermione knew she was safe here. They must have done it.”
It took a moment for this to sink in, and Harry, who was utterly exhausted, did not waste time in charging straight towards the exit, followed by Horatio and Jules. He couldn’t leave Hermione out there, and if he left now, just as morning began to open, he might have a chance of finding Hermione. Oh, but it was dangerous out in the daylight - you could be spotted, and then your life would be in danger, or worse.
For the most part, Harry was terrified that Snape’s threat would be coming to ground sooner rather than later. He had always been quick - with hand and with wit, and he would have needed to tell the Dark Lord that it had been Harry Potter who had forced him to leave his home. Oh yes…
Right now, Harry needed to get outside. But when he came to the gate, he found someone already waiting for them.
“I thought you’d be trying to head out, Potter,” Reg purred, his eyes narrowing with glee. “You don’t have permission to leave.”
Harry was in no state to wait on Reg’s distractions. “I don’t care if I have permission to leave or not,” he hissed. “You made Hermione leave, and I am going to go and recover her.”
Reg moved forwards, motioning towards the shadows, where Leela’s team came to join him. “Subordination! I’ll have you thrown away for this, Potter! I’ve been waiting for a very long time…”
Without even thinking about what he was doing, Harry drew his wand and pointed it straight at Reg’s heart, his green eyes glittering like Avada Kedavra itself. “Get the hell out of my way, Reg. Or I will kill you. You’re no better than that Death Eater scum that hunts us.”
“You leave, Potter,” Reg growled, though there was fear in his dark eyes, “And you aren’t coming back.”
“I wouldn’t want to come back. Don’t make me tell you to move again, Reg.”
Reg smirked, moving to step out of the way - but a raucous from further down the hall made him pause in midstep. Old Krone came tearing out of the shadows, a pair of captains behind him.
“Potter…we need to know what happened on your last mission, and we need to know now. We just received warning calls from Scotland, Portsmouth, Wales, London, Cambridge, Oxford, Chester, Liverpool…wizards in the air - hundreds of them - their lackies covering the ground…”
Harry’s jaw set as he looked towards Reg, then back towards Krone. “They’re looking for us. Give the call to lock down, conceal all exits. Whatever you do, don’t go above ground until it settles down.” He stepped past Reg, but was stopped again by Krone.
“Harry, in a lock down, I can’t permit you to leave.”
“I’ll either get captured, Mike, or I’ll find a way to draw their attention away from you. I’ll be heading towards London in the long term. You have to understand…Hermione is my the last living reminder of my childhood - before all this started. She means so much to me…”
Krone sighed, and lifted his hand to rub at his forehead. “Allright…go be the hero, Harry - but be careful.”
“I will. Hold the fort, Krone - and make sure this…” He turned to scowl at Reg, “This traitorous arsehole doesn’t endanger more lives. Because if I ever find out… He didn’t go on, but he did look worriedly back towards his old friend. “Hide well.”
“Good luck, Harry. Close up before you leave, eh?”
“I’ll need it,” Harry replied, drolly, making his way out of the door, closing it behind him. With the help of Jules and Horatio, they worked on the exit, covering it with ferns and rocks, so as to conceal it. When Harry was quite satisfied with this, he used a low level spell to ward away people who might come to the entrance. Low level spells, after all, were undetectable, and it would do a lot to protect the people within.
They hadn’t taken long, and Harry led away into the woods, in the direction of the coast. He wasn’t pleased with this direction: the coastline was open, and it was in the opposite direction to London - but at least in this direction, Harry knew where there was a small safe house full of supplies that they could conceal themselves in overnight.
They walked all morning, searching as far as three people could search without breaking cover, or losing sight of each other. When they stopped, it was mid afternoon, and they were hungry and tired.
Stopping just up the steep bank above a stream, Harry sat exhaustedly on the roots of a tree, and brought one knee up to his chest, letting the other dangle over the bank. “This is impossible…we’re never going to find her before they do.”
Harry sighed, lifting one hand to rub at his eyes. “Let’s share some food before we move on. I’ve still got a little of my travel food left. What about you, Jules?”
Jules sat down beside him, “Plenty. You know how little I eat. Here, I’ll share mine with Horatio.”
“Thanks, Jules,” Harry murmured, unpacking the small box full of rations from his pocket. Tablets, and dehydrated foods, mostly. From his other pocket he produced a flask of water, and he lifted it up and then sighed. “Looks like I’m out. How about you?”
Jules removed her flask from her pocket and tipped it over, flipping the cap off. Nothing. Not a drop inside. Reaching out, Harry snatched it off her. “I’ll go down to the stream and fill them up. Why don’t you two get started?”
He stood up and carefully began to pick his way down the edge of the bank, moving cautiously out from underneath the trees. At the stream he stepped out onto the top of a dry rock and placed the two flasks down next to him.
The water, when he splashed it onto his face, and into his eyes, was cool and clear; it’s scent clean, without a trace of anything dangerous in it. After a few moments of just waking himself up, he took up the flasks again and filled them each in turn. It was just as he closed the cap on the second one that he heard it, the crack of a footstep as it broke a twig.
Deciding better than to call out; Harry rose back to his feet and began to warily move in the direction of the sound. He moved upstream from one stone to the next, carefully avoiding slipping, or splashing.
Another crack, a rustle and a splash, this time followed by an expletive, just around the next meander told him that he was getting close, and he moved back to the bank and climbed up it, carefully inching over the top.
It was all he could do not to cast the Killing Curse on the spot. A member of the Household of Malfoy stood in the stream below, dark green and black house robes swaying in the motion of the water. He was turned away from Harry, but there was no mistaking the girl on her back in the water as being Hermione. “Gotcha, you dirty little…” he growled, loud enough for Harry to hear him.
He turned, and hollered into the forest, and Harry realized with a terrible shock that they must be in the middle of a searching ground. He let out a wild owl’s hoot, which he hoped desperately that Jules and Horatio would hear. The barn owl’s hoot meant hide. The screech owl meant run, and the nightingale meant attack; but right now, he used the barn owl. He needed them safely hidden.
Quickly, Harry edged up the last bit of the slope and clambered under a thick, bristly bush, to watch, and wait for the opportune moment.
“She’s not the same girl we started with,” this was a grumbling growl from the trees, before a large man that Harry recognized vaguely as looking like Crabbe emerged. His dark hair was graying around the edges, and Harry took a double take to make sure it wasn’t Crabbe. No, he was definitely too old; but it could easily be his father.
This suggested that the other man was Goyle’s father, perhaps.
Lo and behold, two mirror versions of the older men stomped noisily out of the forest. It was a surprise to them both to see Hermione, whom they both recognized, even with their pathetic memories.
“That’s Granger!” said Goyle, instantly, and Crabbe nodded, moving to get a better look at the frightened, wide eyed girl in the water.
Harry had just decided that he was going to attack when something was said that turned him to ice from the inside out.
“Where’s Draco?”
Malfoy was here? Malfoy, in this wood? Now? Harry found himself looking over his shoulder, trying to find him, all the while straining to hear from one of the four in the clearing as to where he really was.
“I don’t know. I hate taking instructions from that little twerp…” groused Crabbe Sr. “If his father wasn’t here, I’d probably…”
“Probably what?” This was Lucius Malfoy’s cool voice, from across the stream, and Harry had his first sight of the man for a very long time. His hair was still neat, tied back to protect it for the chase. His eyes, cool blue, except when he was angry, were a hard, steely grey.
Lucius Malfoy was a very patient man, but at this moment, he had just heard a threat against his son. Crabbe Sr. could not have expected less than what he received for being overheard. An instant Crucio brought him down to his knees in the stream.
“What have we here?” Lucius asked after a moment of watching the man switch and scream in Cruciatus, with an air of disinterest about his features. He turned towards Hermione, and carefully stepped closer. “This is not the girl we started out with…”
“It’s Hermione Granger, Sir,” Goyle said, hopefully.
“I can see that. Shut up for a second, Goyle…” Malfoy straightened up, and looked around, eyes narrowing. Harry was, for just a second, utterly convinced that Malfoy could see into the bush where he was hiding, with blue eyes like Mad Eye Moody’s; but when Malfoy didn’t instantly point him out and attack him, he was silently relieved.
“Sir?”
“Severus noted to me once that friends of Harry Potter do not often go where Harry Potter himself is not… If Granger is here…then perhaps Snape is right, and Potter really is alive.”
“He certainly seemed certain last night,” another voice, drawling and familiar; but this one came from right on top of Harry. Draco Malfoy could have been standing no more than a foot away from him, leaning against the tree. Again, Harry had the desperate urge to run; that he could not possibly be hidden well enough for Draco not to see him…
Thankfully, Draco had never seemed to be much of an observer. He stepped away from the tree, walking down the bank to peer at Hermione too. Six wizards in broad daylight! There was little chance of Harry and his friends rescuing Hermione now. If only he’d attacked when it was just Goyle!
“Mudblood,” Draco cajoled, when he laid eyes on Hermione. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on you, ever since this war began.”
Lucius stepped forwards, narrowing his eyes at his son. “I do hope…you wouldn’t consider…”
“Touching a Mudblood?! Father, I’m appalled that you would think so little of me!”
Hermione, obviously, had had quite enough of being talked about; she kicked Draco viciously in the leg and yelled ‘Harry’ furiously at him.
Draco kicked a spray of water and stones at her, viciously and then stepped away, squinting around the clearing. Apparently he could not see Harry, because he shouted. “Don’t worry, Potter! We’ll take good care of her for you! Of course you’re too cowardly to come out and save your friend!”
Digging his nails into the soft earth under the bush, Harry did his best not to react to Draco’s statements. He was trying to enrage him, get him to show his face. But for all Draco knew, Harry might not be there.
Lucius then lifted his voice, and Harry pushed his face down into the dirt to not respond to the older man’s words; because they were about Ron.
“Very well, Potter. If that’s the way that you want to play it,” he said, loud enough for Harry to hear, though if he were any further away, he might have had to listen harder. He wondered… No. Lucius wouldn’t be playing games with him if he knew he was here, would he? “Remember, Potter,” he said, malicious, but smooth. “The last time you were too late to save your friend. Imagine how terrible it would be to lose another. Come Draco, let’s go.”
“What about the Muggle hunt?” This from Crabbe.
Lucius waved his hand, and moved to scoop Hermione out of the water. “One Muggle is of no consequence. The wolves will get her tonight, I have no doubt of it.”
Harry experienced a brief worry on the subject of werewolves, but more important in his mind now was rescuing Hermione; and the fact that this was shaping up to be his walking straight into a trap. A trap set by Malfoy.
Maybe he could die, after all.
Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far. I had a wildly unproductive few days, I'm afraid, but there's more now, so enjoy!