Chapter Fifteen of 'World in Pieces'- Herding
Chapter Fourteen.
Title: World in Pieces (15/24)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings: Violence, angst, mentions of suicide and torture.
Pairings: Past AU Harry/Draco, canon het pairings otherwise (and no pairing for Harry in the present of the story). Eventually, a Snape mentors Harry story.
Rating: PG-13 to R
Summary: Harry is summoned to an alternate universe still suffering under Voldemort less than an hour after his own defeat of the bastard. Worse, he's not the first Harry Potter they've called on this way. Worst yet (at the moment), there is no way back home. But give Harry time, and he's likely to find something that's even worse.
Author's Notes: This is a WiP that's likely to progress extremely slowly. I know it has 24 chapters, and they'll be long, but I can't say exactly when it'll be updated. It's also really angsty at times, although hopefully never for very long. It picks up right after the last chapter (as opposed to the epilogue) of DH.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Fifteen-Herding
“I do not see what you could leave here as an anchor for the bridge, when most of your possessions are back in Hogwarts.”
Snape’s voice was as smooth and calm as ever, and Harry didn’t open his eyes and glare only because he was trying to practice the discipline that might let him lift stronger Occlumency barriers if Voldemort ever attacked his mind again. He breathed out instead, and imagined the irritation leaving him in a long, smooth stream, mingling with the rest of the air in the room, thinning out and vanishing until he no longer felt anything-
Then he snorted helplessly and shook his head. Oh, what the hell, he might as well admit to himself that he couldn’t do this right now.
Harry opened his eyes and turned his head to face Snape. Snape was seated on the other side of the long table in what he called the “working room,” still another fold of wizardspace inside the walls of Shaldon’s Garden. He was holding a potions vial to his face, and frowning at it. Harry had no idea why. He could see a brown patch floating on the surface of the purple potion, but for all he knew, that was what it was supposed to look like.
“I brought the clothes I’m wearing from that world,” he answered. “You’ve given me others. I can wear some of them when I’m running across the bridge.”
Snape paused, and his eyes flickered as he looked at Harry. Maybe it was only because Harry had disturbed his contemplation of the potion, but Harry really didn’t think so. Of course, every time he thought he’d learned to read Snape, the man would throw another obscure expression his way. So Harry sat there and kept his face bland and didn’t really make a guess. At last Snape set the vial down on the table and leaned forwards.
“I was under the impression that you had used different clothing found at Hogwarts,” he said.
Harry shrugged a little. “I did. But I always wore at least one piece of clothing from home because I thought it might make opening a gate back there easier. I used Cleaning Charms on them, don’t look so disgusted,” he added, though he could really only tell by the way that the lines around Snape’s mouth firmed that he was disgusted instead of amused or angry.
Snape shook his head and picked up the potions vial again. “You are more cautious than I thought you were,” he said. Harry looked that over for compliments or criticism, then let it go. Snape-either version of him-had never been shy about letting him know when Harry did something he disapproved of, after all.
“Anyway,” Harry said. “You volunteered to anchor the bridge, so that’s one problem solved. But we have the time limit, and we have the original Harry’s murder to solve, and we have Dumbledore and Voldemort to deal with.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Snape said, dry as burned toast, still staring intently into the potions vial.
Harry sighed, spent a minute regarding Snape, and then said, “What does the potion you’re looking at have to do with it? It doesn’t look like Polyjuice.” He had assumed that he and Snape would immediately go out on another mission, disguised as Dumbledore and Snape himself, to make the Death Eaters think Dumbledore was going to summon more Harrys, but Snape had said nothing about it.
“It is not,” Snape said, and tilted the vial so that the potion flowed into a decanter. Then he proceeded to stare at the decanter the same way.
Harry waited, and waited some more, and finally rolled his eyes and said, “So what is it?”
Snape put the vial down on the table and faced him. Harry read the tension in his shoulders and his hands, but he had no idea what Snape would say before he said it. Probably because there was no way to predict that Snape would suddenly have gone completely mental.
“A mind control potion to bring Dumbledore under our influence and end the problem that he presents.”
*
Harry went still, staring at him. Severus wondered if he was about to be subjected to a sudden flurry of Gryffindor conscience-clearing, but he doubted it. Harry knew what Albus had wanted to do to him, and what he had the potential to do, and how he had pulled him here in the first place. There was little room in a hatred like that for compassion.
Instead, Harry said, talking so quietly that Severus wondered if that tone of voice was the last thing the Dark Lord in his world had heard, “How are you going to get close enough to feed it to him?”
“I am going back to Hogwarts,” Severus said, and waited.
Harry curled his hands into claws, and then got up and walked towards the door of the room. Severus realized that he was bracing himself for Harry to walk out and announce that Severus had gone mad to the Weasleys, and curled his lip in self-contempt. That should not be the kind of thing that he needed to brace for.
Instead, Harry shut the door of the working room and then turned around, leaning against it. His hand had gone to the wand that, more and more, Severus thought of as the source of his darkness, the elder wood wand that had not been the one he arrived in this world with, or one like the other Harrys had wielded. Harry’s voice was low and reasonable and gentle. “You can’t do that. Why would you think you could do that?”
“I was under the impression that we were equal partners in this endeavor,” Severus said, and locked eyes with him, “not master and slave.”
That shot made Harry flinch, as Severus had intended. But all he did was come back at it from a different angle. “You know that Dumbledore would find some way to hang onto you and prevent you from coming back to Shaldon’s Garden.”
“Do I.” Severus spoke lazily, the tone that had most used to anger the Harry born here when he refused to give him credit for a quick but messy workaround in Potions, and saw anger kindle deep in the green eyes.
“He’s too powerful to face directly,” Harry said. “Not until we’re ready. I think that we should come up with some way to take him and Vol-sorry, Snake-Man down at the same time, or we’ll have one rushing in to fill the space that the other one leaves behind.”
“That is a clever thought,” Severus said, meaning it. He would not have expected Harry to be so sensitive to power dynamics. “But I do not think that we can take them down with the same tactic, no matter the same timing. Their strategies are ultimately different. And their power is very nearly equal. While handling one, that would leave the other space to creep closer and strike at our backs.”
Harry opened his mouth. His eyes flamed deeper now, with a green color that Severus could not remember seeing from any of the others. Of course, this Harry was not like any of the others, and the color of his tie was only the start of it.
Severus waited for the unexpected burst of emotions to fade like the fireworks they resembled, and said, “Hear me out.”
He could not remember when the last time was that Albus had granted that plea. But it made Harry hesitate, then fold his arms and nod in a grudging fashion that conveyed it had better be good.
“One of us will need to return to Hogwarts soon,” Severus said gently. “We need certain things there, and we need to allay certain suspicions, before the plans that we are using against the Dark Lord unfurl to the point that there is truly no way back. Perhaps we may have only one visit. That is entirely possible, if there is a spy in the Order as I fear there is. But from a distance, it is hard to conduct an investigation into the murder, or use the potions that we have in our labs. I am making this venture more for my books and potions than in the hopes of controlling Albus. That is a secondary goal.”
“You didn’t make it sound like that,” Harry said, and looked at the decanter.
Severus paused. The other Harrys had shown little skill at telling when he lied, although the Harry born to this world had been a good liar himself. Perhaps it was best not to lie, after all. This Harry had been through enough, from his original battles to his trials and tribulations in this universe.
“The goals are of equal importance, then, let us say,” he admitted, inclining his head. “I do need some of my books, some of my notes, and some of my already-prepared potions. We would not be able to afford the time that it would take me to find the ingredients and brew them here. And I do want to deter Albus if at all possible. And I was thinking that we might bring Draco here, if he would agree to refrain from bothering you. He could give us more insight into the murder.”
“Even though he blames you?” Harry leaned close, and if he had the quills of a hedgehog, Severus thought, they would have bristled. “He does. He thinks that you had an argument with that Harry right before he died that makes you a prime suspect, or pushed him into doing it if it really was suicide.”
Severus stared at him, and said nothing.
“I didn’t reveal that before because I wasn’t sure how much I trusted you,” Harry said, quick and blunt as the push of an adder’s nose. “But I think that there’s-I mean, I trust you enough when you say that you’re going to go back and risk your life to give this potion to Dumbledore. I don’t want to lose your support as an ally. And I don’t want you to risk your life for nothing.”
“It is not nothing,” Severus said, but through numb lips. “What do you think happened to Harry, if not for me killing him?”
*
Harry hesitated, and then made the commitment. He’d already taken one leap today, after all, and he didn’t really have any reason to think that Snape wasn’t loyal. If he had only been playing, he could have taken Harry straight to Voldemort when they Apparated to Shaldon’s Garden, instead of revealing a place so valuable to Harry.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I discovered a diary hidden behind one of the lumps on Harry’s bed in the Slytherin boys’ rooms, but it’s in code. And I haven’t had the time to look closely at it or translate it.”
Snape continued to look at him. Then he nodded. “I also wanted to bring Draco here because I think that he will never get over his boyfriend’s murder until he sees you at closer hand and learns that you are not him,” he said. “And because he could help me with the brewing. Do you agree?”
“I agree,” Harry said. “But I don’t know that you should go alone, and I don’t know that taking Draco and your potions out of Hogwarts is worth the risk.”
“This is something you should trust me on, as you trusted me with the knowledge that you just revealed,” Snape said, with his face looking the way the one in Harry’s world did when he’d used Sectumsempra on Malfoy. “I need the potions that are there, including Polyjuice that we will not have to wait a month to brew. We need the books. I think Draco would be better away from the Order, and with us, for the reasons that I have stated. And my potion will work, if I can administer it to Dumbledore.” He hefted the decanter again. “The benefit of taking him down is worth the risk of losing me.”
Harry hesitated, but he had to admit that the time limit they were under until either Dumbledore or Voldemort-whoever had placed the barrier between his world and this one-learned what was going on and acted made things desperate. Snape seemed reasonably calm and confident. And a strategy like this would take a lot less time and be a lot more likely to work than anything Harry had been able to come up with.
“Why a decanter?” Harry had to ask. “Why not a vial?”
Snape pursed his lips and tilted his head the slightest bit to the side, and that was what he did when Harry had impressed him. The gesture was only familiar to Harry from this world; his Snape had never done anything like that. “Because this is a two-part potion,” he said. “A potion of the dividere class. I will drink half, and Albus will drink half, and that will forge the bond between our minds.”
Harry rubbed his forehead, and grinned a bit. “If you expect me to understand anything about Potions, then you should think again.”
“I know that you are perfectly capable of understanding anything you put your mind to. It is the effort of putting your mind to it that you do not often exert.”
Harry stared at Snape, who he thought had complimented him, but had done it in such a flat tone that Harry found it hard to tell. Snape busied himself with wrapping up some of the ingredients on the table for a moment, and then faced Harry.
“While I am gone, it would be well if you worked on investing the object you will leave to anchor the bridge with magical power,” he said briskly. “And there are other things you can do, as well.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Really? I never thought of that.”
Snape didn’t smile. “You should handle the Weasleys,” he said. “I placed a charm on Miss Weasley that will erase her memory of what she saw and heard if she attempts to speak about it in a damaging way. But I noticed that you did not anticipate the need for such a thing.”
Harry shook his head, grimacing. Only later had he realized that Ginny might see his communication with Ron and Hermione in the light of something other than proof that he was from a different universe. “My perceptions getting in the way again, I reckon. The one I know in my universe would never betray me.”
“This one might.”
“I know that now,” Harry snapped.
Snape studied him for a few moments more, then nodded. “My mission to Hogwarts should take no more than a day,” he said. “If I do not come back after that, consider me lost. Shaldon’s Garden must have a master who is clear in mind, enough that the plants in the garden would recognize him as able to make the free-willed choice to enter. If Albus does not leave me enough control of my mind to do that, the house passes to you.”
Harry stared at him again. “When did you have time to think about things like that?” he asked helplessly. It was only yesterday that Ginny had found them with Macnair, and Harry had concentrated on Occlumency and the time limit and what object he should invest with magic since then, and thought he was doing well. But apparently Snape had made Harry his heir, put the spell on Ginny, brewed a whole new mind-control potion, and laid future plans in the same amount of time.
Snape nodded to him, and still did not smile. “When I am under a time limit, I know how to arrange things,” he said. “It is a skill you will have to learn if I do not return.”
“I’ll learn it even if you don’t,” Harry said fiercely. He hadn’t liked the impression, during their conversation, that Snape was far ahead of him and speaking to him like an adult to a child. Maybe that wasn’t how he’d meant to come across, but it was how Harry had felt. “I want to learn it.”
Snape smiled at last, then, and the smile calmed Harry more than he could say. “Good. Then I will expect to see evidence when I get back.” And he swept out of the room and was gone with those words.
Harry sat where he was for a moment, taking deep breaths. Then he reached out and laid his fingers on the edge of his shirt. Of all the clothes he had brought with him, it would be the easiest to leave behind, and he had intense memories to invest it with: memories from this universe and the battle against Voldemort that he had worn it in.
He was not going to lag behind, he thought as he drew the Elder Wand and focused on thinking about these spells as destructive ones, so that it would cooperate with him. He was going to show Snape that he could work just as well when he was faced with a time limit.
*
Severus closed his eyes when he stood outside Shaldon’s Garden and spent a moment letting himself think that he would never see it again, that he might lose Harry to Albus or the Dark Lord, or lose control of his own mind.
Those thoughts would do him no good for being repressed, and in some ways he enjoyed the taste of them, the thickness and the pain. So he let them have their day, possessing his mind and disordering his emotions, and potentially his actions.
Then he began to build his Occlumency barriers.
These went higher and further than he had ever raised them before, even when he was still spying in the Dark Lord’s ranks. The Dark Lord was not easy to fool, but he had wanted to believe, at a fundamental level, that no one would ever betray him because he was too glorious to betray, too compelling and dangerous. Albus, on the other hand, had a wider imagination, and that included the idea that people could disagree with him and turn their backs on him.
Even if he could not understand why anyone would disagree with his wonderful, genius plans of summoning continual Harrys from another universe…
Severus let the emotion pass through him and fade in the distance. It was not of any use in building the barriers.
He started with a soft, flexible shield on his outer memories, made of emotional rubber. Albus would expect to feel some resistance when he began to probe. Not much, not anything that would keep him from getting through if he pressed, but something. The most suspicious thing Severus could do was step into Albus’s office with a completely open mind, full of the desire to please.
Behind that barrier, he raised another that would not seem a barrier, this one made of false memories, false images, of Harry yielding to him and learning to agree that the Order had done the best possible thing they could by summoning him. For the base, Severus used memories of punishing the original Harry born to this world, and twisted them to change their backgrounds and surroundings. The walls of his office blurred and wavered, and became the walls of an imaginary house, resembling the one he had used at Spinner’s End enough to confuse Albus. Not fool him, not forever; Severus did not believe he could do so.
This was, instead, about layers of deception, about soothing Albus to the point that he would stop looking.
Behind that barrier of memories came a thicker wall, of steel, such as Severus had often used against the Dark Lord. And more false memories behind that one, and another steel barrier, and more false memories.
Sometimes Severus thought that even he would lose the memory of what was false and what was real, and fade into the shadows of madness. He only knew that it had not happened so far, and that if only he knew which ones were real, he had only to take the barriers down the moment he came out of danger. It was why he had never failed to drop his Occlumency shields and think of something else when he came out of a meeting with the Dark Lord.
And in the center of his mind, the real memories lay behind the softest and most deceptive barrier, the one that was darkness, and pure power. If Albus pierced that far, Severus would be in trouble, but he would also be in the home ground of Severus’s mind, the ground that the Dark Lord had stepped onto when he attacked Harry through the Parseltongue bond. They would battle there.
Severus did not think he would win. But he did think that Albus would not return to his own skull, and the defeat of one great enemy was a price he was prepared to pay.
Thus armed, thus shielded, thus defended, he went forth to battle.
*
“We need to bring in more allies.”
Harry was pleased that his voice was steady and calm. Cracking would have been bad, but so would have sounding too hopeful, he thought. He wanted the Weasleys to accept what he was saying as a fact, not something that would stand or fall depending on their approval, even though it was.
And now I’m thinking like Snape.
He looked into face after face. Mrs. Weasley was already nodding. Ginny smiled at him. Percy just stood back with a little frown on his face and his arms folded. He could go either way, Harry thought. He might think that Harry was defying Dumbledore too much, or he might think that Harry was just going along with Snape for the moment to fool him, and would come back to Dumbledore in the end.
Percy was a problem, but hardly the biggest one, so Harry focused on George instead, since he was the one speaking. “How many people do you think will actually believe that you’re from another universe and all the rest of it?” George asked, cocking his head. “Let alone that you can defeat You-Know-Who?”
Harry smiled at him. “That was where I was hoping you could help me.” George stiffened a little, and Harry felt something Snape-like in him wake up and sniff. Ah. “I can’t believe that everyone’s just given up and huddling around waiting for Vold-him to fall on them or the Order to win. The world’s in a bad state, fine, but not everyone gives up. You’re in contact with some of the resistance groups, aren’t you?”
Fred and George exchanged glances, and Harry couldn’t follow the silent argument that went on. But he thought it was a good sign that Fred turned back to him and said shortly, “Yeah. But they won’t want to come out of hiding for anything less than a sure means of defeating You-Know-Who. How can you offer that?”
Harry considered him for a moment. He and Snape hadn’t discussed this far. What was sure?
Well, if he couldn’t offer something sure, he still might be able to offer something impressive. He held his wand out in front of him and said, “Serpensortia.”
The Elder Wand was eager enough to perform that spell, because it might lead to the serpent biting someone. When it hit the floor, Harry wove a much longer and shadowier serpent than he remembered Malfoy’s spell creating in second year. The snake stretched across the floor in looping grey coils; when it opened its mouth to hiss, the inside of its mouth was black. Harry could see the fangs, and knew instinctively that it was dangerous.
“Down,” Harry hissed to the snake, and when it turned to face him, tongue flicking madly, he said, “I said, down.”
The serpent struggled with him a moment more, because Harry’s Parseltongue was rusty and the spell really was more powerful when cast with the Elder Wand. Then it laid its head down and its eyes turned blank in the way that had happened to the snake during second year, when Harry commanded it not to attack Justin.
Harry looked up and smiled at the stunned faces of the Weasleys. “I can speak Parseltongue,” he said. “Just like the original Harry here did, I imagine. I can take down some of his guards and traps. It’s not something Dumbledore can do. You can tell them that.” He had thought, briefly, of revealing that his wand was the Elder Wand, but aside from the problem that he didn’t have any proof, there was the fact that someone might then try to take it from him.
Percy was staring at him as if he would have tried. Harry turned away with his eyebrow raised and focused on Fred and George.
Once again, they exchanged glances in silent conversation, and then they both faced Harry and nodded at the same moment. He smiled, glad that it wasn’t going to be a problem, and dismissed the serpent with a simple Finite. He did that nonverbally, something he wouldn’t have tried in front of an audience when he came here, and Percy started and stepped backwards when he did.
“Make contact with all the allies you can,” Harry said, looking from face to face. “I think that we need an army to fight against You-Know-Who. It’s our best chance to show people that there’s hope, which they might not believe anymore.”
“I’m not sure that I believe it,” Percy muttered.
His mother glared at him, and then faced Harry and nodded. “I know some people who would fight if there was a real chance,” she murmured. “I can offer them my testimony, but would you be willing to meet them somewhere neutral so that they can see your face and your magic for themselves?”
Harry’s fingers tightened around his wand for a moment, but he ended up blowing out his breath and nodding. “As long as you don’t make any bargains for me without asking me first,” he said. “Some of the areas they might choose could be too dangerous or too exposed to Death Eater attack.” He was proud of himself for thinking of that, and he thought Snape might be proud of him, too.
As long as I don’t try to actually leave Shaldon’s Garden without clearing the destination with him first.
Mrs. Weasley nodded to him again-for a second, Harry thought she would salute-and then turned around with the clear intention of organizing her family. Harry slipped quietly out of the room and disappeared into another folded wizardspace that contained the library. There were books of Dark Arts spells that Snape had told him he should study. Well, not just Dark Arts spells, of course; Harry hadn’t missed the way Snape sometimes looked at him, and he was probably worried about Harry turning too Dark. But there were spells there like the ones Evelina had tried to teach him.
Evelina.
Another possible ally. Harry wrote her name down on a parchment he was always carrying with him now, and opened the first of the stack of books that Snape had left on the table in the center of the library. It was a handsome room with dusky gold walls and firelight falling on the tables. Harry tried to think of that, of the serene atmosphere around him and the way that the rows of books looked like protecting walls and not the danger that Snape might be in.
There’s nothing that I can do right now, anyway. I could never fool Dumbledore into thinking I was obedient without a lot more practice in lying, and Dumbledore wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to persuade Malfoy. And I couldn’t have kept Snape here without battling him. I have to trust him at some point.
Even telling himself that didn’t help much. Harry grimaced and plunged into the study of the spells that might.
*
Severus paused outside the gates of the school and forced himself to regard it with a critical eye, the way that Harry might. Any information he could bring back on the Order was valuable.
And if he was putting off the moment when he would have to face Albus, well. A wise man knew his own weaknesses and took measures to combat them while not indulging them. Go in to Albus too soon, and Severus would be riding his own nervous energy. He would do what he must to win, and not what he must to prove himself to an audience that did not exist.
Hogwarts had once loomed to his perceptions. It crouched now, and the hum of wards around it was audible. The Dark Lord had cast it into this gloom with a relatively small group of followers, and, Severus had to admit, great personal power.
But what had happened had happened, most of all, because Albus had got it into his head that only Harry stood a chance of defeating the Dark Lord. He had said that he had researched it and found no other answer. Severus, in the core of his being, did not believe that. Albus had stumbled on a likely solution and followed the path, because it was the path that promised hope and support to the people around him while not costing him much.
And now that he was seeing the real cost, the effect on the Harrys and his own followers of summoning Harry after Harry from another universe, Albus still saw admitting the cost and the waste as the greater problem. Say he was wrong, and it meant lives sacrificed uselessly. It might mean the doom of the world, as despair overcame the Order’s loyalty.
So Albus would persist in being wrong, because it was unimaginable to him that he could be wrong forever, and more unimaginable still to admit this.
A grim smile on his face, Severus strode forwards. The wards spat at him, and then formed a solid, silent amber block around him. Severus arched his eyebrows and looked up at the tower that had once been Gryffindor’s, pitching his voice to carry.
“Am I so distrusted?”
Silence inside and outside the block for long moments. Then Minerva stepped out of the school and proceeded towards him.
Severus had only studied her for a moment when he knew something was wrong. Either Minerva had suffered a great shock and grief, and Severus did not believe that even hidden in Shaldon’s Garden they would not have heard of such a thing, or someone had her under the Imperius Curse. She walked too stiffly, and her face wavered between an expression he could believe of her and one he had never seen in her features.
Or…
This is not Minerva.
He had left Polyjuice Potion behind in his stores, and of course it was not beyond Albus’s skill to brew or his foresight to have a batch constantly on the simmer, eliminating the necessity of preparing it for a month. Severus decided that he would act on the suspicion that it was not her, and not show that suspicion.
He nodded to her as she came up to the edge of the ward block. “Minerva.” He paused, then let a sneer slip into his voice. “Am I no longer trusted? Do you wish me to show you the Dark Mark?” He reached for the edge of his left sleeve.
He was watching, and his senses were on the alert far more than they would have been otherwise, as alert as they had been when he was in the clearing with Harry pretending to be Dumbledore. Minerva’s mouth twitched, but no expression of repulsion overcame her such as she had exhibited in the past when she looked upon his Dark Mark. No, this was the flicker of someone who had seen it in the past and who had more important things to command Severus to do at the moment.
This is Albus.
That relaxed some of his muscles even as it tensed others. So the worst had happened, and Severus knew himself so suspected that he would probably not get to try his potion. What he had told Harry still remained true. They needed to eliminate one of their enemies immediately, and Albus was the easier one to reach.
“It’s not that, Severus,” Albus said in cadences that imitated but could not reach Minerva’s. Albus had never been as good with tone and inflections as he had been with ideas. Of course, once he bound an Order member closely to him, his thoughts were their own, Severus thought. Albus held out one hand, and waved a replica of Minerva’s wand to conjure a globe of white light above his palm. “We have had multiple attacks while you were gone, some of them wearing the guise of trusted friends. We simply wish to make sure that we hold you until Polyjuice would have worn off.”
Severus admired the bright edge of the irony, of the two ironies: Albus’s words about Polyjuice and that this was not a spell Minerva had ever been able to master. Obediently, however, he leaned forwards to view the past in the globe.
The attack was indeed vicious, wave after wave of dead animals flung against the wards of Hogwarts. Most of them burned up, but the weight was more than the wards could handle in certain specific points, and the Dark Lord had been a student here; he would know which points to attack. Rotting hawks fell on the towers and began to squirm on maggot-ridden wings towards the stairs, until Albus stepped out of hiding and blasted them to pieces.
The globe swirled and showed another attack. Severus blinked in shock as he saw the face of Remus Lupin on a man who came to the gate and requested entrance. Only the wards that would have detected a Dark Mark revealed the deception.
They have Lupin, then. Or the ability to brew Polyjuice from him.
And a third attack, this time with enormous snakes, serpents of shadow perhaps fifty feet long, squirming out of the lake and crawling up the walls. They flowed past the wards, which could not stop the immaterial substance they were made of, and settled crushingly on the gates. The gates trembled and fell, and then the rest of the attack vanished in a rush of blinding light as Albus, Severus guessed, destroyed the creatures. A clever man, to have reckoned that animals of shadow would fall before a light that cast no shadows.
But he had never denied Albus cleverness, only other things.
He leaned back and looked into Minerva’s face, and found the calm, clever eyes looking steadily back at him. Albus knew that Severus knew.
Severus’s heart beat faster in dread, but in some ways, this made things far easier. He nodded in acknowledgment of what the globe had showed him and in acknowledgment of the trap that had closed around him.
“What will you do now?” he asked, a question that had its own barbs.
Albus gave him a sad smile, no longer pretending to mimic the way that Minerva’s face naturally bent. “You are only a pawn,” he said gently. “As am I. As are we all, when the great forces of destiny fight.”
Severus said nothing, because there was no sense to oppose to such nonsense.
“But some pawns are more important than others,” Albus said, and waved his wand to make Severus’s makeshift prison rise and float into the castle. “And you, my dear boy, will draw in a king.”
Harry will not be so foolish as to attack to save me. The Weasleys will not let him be so foolish. Severus folded his hands in his sleeves, and said nothing. He feared what might happen to him, but he feared what could happen to Harry more. He would remain still for now, and see what did happen, and wait for an opportunity to strike.
It will come. That, I must believe.
Chapter Sixteen.
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