6.

"What are you doing?"

A glass vial—she'd waited to speak until he was handling an empty one—slips from Snape's fingers, and shatters on the stone floor of the potions classroom.

Luna smiles, politely, as he sees her and bares his teeth, converting the expression at the last second to an unpleasant smile.

"Miss Lovegood." He repairs the vial and takes his time filling it with thick black liquid before he speaks again. "I believe you are already in violation of the promise you made the Headmaster just this morning."

"Oh no. I only promised Professor Dumbledore that I wouldn't wander where it wasn't safe."

"You think yourself safe here?"

"Well." She's not sure how he wants her to reply to that—anything she says will sound like an insult. "Rescuing me last night was a lot of hard work. If you wanted to kill me I expect you would have done it before now."

Snape's thin lips stretch into a smile, but his eyes remain on his cauldron. "Ah, but death is not the only danger facing you. It is merely the final one."

Luna smiles to herself in turn, because she is always delighted by a neatly phrased truth. She doesn't actually laugh, though. Her laughter makes people uncomfortable. It took her years to realize this.

She walks closer to Snape's work bench, where three small cauldrons are perched over boxes of Portable Flame. The air on this side of the classroom is thick with steam and the scent of boiling fennel. Snape is slicing fangorn weed into strips with a silver knife, then gathering them up with the long, pale fingers of his left hand and throwing them into the cauldron closest by.

"I'm left-handed, too," Luna says, watching his hands and thinking of her father trimming news parchment to proper magazine size with his long-handled paper knife.

"I am not left handed. I am ambidextrous." Snape says it carelessly, as though parting with the information costs him nothing. "Many potions, such as this one, require certain herbs to be cut by the left hand, and others by the right. It is a skill all potions-masters learn of necessity."

"Oh." She studies the scarred surface of his work bench, and the reflection of her face in a patch of smooth, polished wood. "You haven't answered my question, you know."

"What I am doing, Miss Lovegood, is brewing a potion. I realize your skills in that area are mediocre at best, but I would expect you to at least recognize the process when you saw it."

She blinks, and several different replies come to the tip of her tongue. She isn't angry. She knows he doesn't know any better. But she wants to correct him, all the same.

"The potion you're brewing is called Tears of Lethe. It's a restricted potion, and brewing it without Ministry dispensation is an offense punishable by six months in Azkaban."

Snape's knife-hand becomes motionless. His head comes up, sharply, and he watches her for a moment before his face relaxes again, and he returns his attention to the herbs he is shredding.

"Well spotted, Miss Lovegood. Obviously you possess a potions expertise which you never chose to demonstrate in my classroom."

"I know quite a lot about poisons."

This earns her another glance, shorter this time, but keener. "Tears of Lethe is not a poison."

"It's an antidote to memory-modification curses. I've always considered them poisonous."

She can see his eyebrows arch, and his lips twist in another small smile. "I would not disagree with that assessment."

She watches him measure a careful spoonful of clear liquid—harvested tears—and add it to the cauldron. She counts the number of times he stirs the mixture, clockwise, into the potion: forty two. If they talked like this for the entire morning, Luna suspects the rhythm of their conversation would continue to match the rhythm of his chopping, measuring, and stirring. Ever since she came into the room, she has been timing her comments to actions of his hands.

"Do you have Ministry dispensation?" she says into nearly a minute of silence.

Snape laughs, and the sound is frightening. She wonders why she should feel that way, when she is certain she has never heard him laugh before. Then she remembers listening as Death Eaters overcame her father with their curses, how the high, wild sound of their laughter had drifted up the stairs to find her in her hiding place.

Snape is speaking, so she forces her attention outward again. "Cornelius Fudge's Ministry would not, at the present time, grant me dispensation to breathe the free air if I required it."

She does not miss the fact that he has not precisely answered the question. "For whom are you brewing it?"

"That is none of your concern."

"You can tell me anyway." She sits on the top of a nearby desk. "I already know your most important secrets, after all."

"Indeed, Miss Lovegood?" He isn't smiling anymore. "Much good may they do you."

"Well, I only wanted you to know that you can trust me with them."

He doesn't miss a beat. "I do not require your trust."

Luna blinks, and sits up straighter by an inch. She'd prepared herself, before she came, not to be put off by his manner. But he has changed in the few hours that have passed since they were in Grimmauld Place together, when he seemed at every moment to be struggling with a sympathy he did not want to reveal.

She only knows one way to respond when she is out of sorts, and that is to take refuge in a degree of frankness that repels more often than it attracts. She knows that it will not improve matters, but she finds that all she cares about now is disturbing him. Forcing him to look at her.

"I wish you would stop disliking me." He freezes, and she hurries on. "You saved me from those Death Eaters, and now I owe you a life-debt." I can feel it already, she thinks to herself, glowing in my mind like a giant Remembrall, with your head looming up inside it, all distorted by the concave lense. "It's a very uncomfortable feeling, knowing I repulse you."

Snape is looking at her now, and his face is unusually white. He takes a deep breath before turning his stare deliberately back to his cauldron.

Luna counts under her breath. Exactly twenty seconds later, he lifts the cauldron from the fire, and places it on a slab of marble at the far end of the counter. When the cauldron's lid is firmly in place, he walks around the end of the workbench. Before Luna quite realizes he is moving in her direction, he has seized her arm, pulled her from the desk, and begun marching her toward the door of the classroom.

"I have no interest," he says, "in fulfilling whatever romantic or heroic fantasy you have conjured for me." His long fingers are digging painfully into the flesh of Luna's arm. "I took you out of that house last night because it suited my purposes. Had circumstances been any different, I would have left you to die with as little regret as I left your father."

Now Luna tries to free herself, but his grip is inflexible, and his voice, soft and low when he first began speaking, grows in volume and intensity. "I know your penchant for theatrical displays, but I do not share it. I am sincere in the distaste I have always shown for you, and nothing which has happened in the last twelve hours has altered it. You will leave now, and you will not disturb me again, or so help me, I will demonstrate how little safety you may enjoy in my presence."

He shoves Luna through the door and releases her in the same motion, so that she stumbles over the threshold. She throws one hand out to catch the door frame, and uses the leverage to spin around and face Snape, who remains standing in the doorway, staring down at her, his features arranged in stone.

Luna lifts her chin, so that she is nearly looking him in the eye. She can feel the skin above her elbow throbbing in long streaks the shape of his fingers.

"You wouldn't be standing there still if you weren't waiting for something," she says.

His lip curls, and the dungeon door shuts in her face with the saturated thud of wood meeting stone.

She turns and stumbles down the dungeon corridor, in the opposite direction of the stairs leading back to the ground floor of the castle and the company of other people.

She is shaken, no doubt. But all in all, the encounter had gone rather better than she anticipated.

Then she hears her name, shouted from somewhere behind her. Because the voice is feminine, familiar, and patently not Snape, she stops and turns.

Hermione Granger is striding toward her, robes billowing, tendrils of hair straying rebelliously from a bun at the nape of her neck. At the sight of her, relief spreads through Luna's body from head to toe.

"Luna." Hermione stops, breathless, in front of her, mere inches before they would have collided. "I've been looking all over for you. Why are you down here?"

They are standing so close together that when Hermione waves a hand to waft the loose hair from her eyes, Luna can feel the air brushing her cheek, and she is reminded suddenly of her mother.

"I didn't feel like staying in Ravenclaw Tower," she says in answer, because she had promised Snape that she would keep his secrets.

"No, of course you didn't." Hermione falls to studying her, the corners of her mouth puckering in a very McGonagall-esque way. She reaches forward rather hesitantly, but there is strength and firmness in the grip of her hand. "Why don't you come up to the kitchens with me? Remus and I are having some tea before we head out again, we've neither of us had anything in ages, and I'm sure you haven't either. Do come, I'm sure you'll feel much better for eating something."

Luna doesn't reply, but neither does she resist when Hermione begins pulling her in the direction of the nearest staircase. Her head is beginning to feel swimmy, and she realizes, in a detached way, that it has been a long night.

And suddenly she finds that there is an unexpected pleasure in being taken up by someone like Hermione, in relaxing into the guiding hand of her gentle bossiness. If Hermione had not come looking for her, Luna would probably have sunk to the stone floor of the dungeon and fallen quietly asleep. She is patient by nature, but it is hard to keep going forward when with every step she takes she feels more and more as if she is moving under water.

"Did you get the owls I sent you?" she asks Hermione after a moment. "I asked my father to give you a complimentary Quibbler subscription, after you canceled the Prophet."

"Oh! Yes, I did. I'm so sorry I didn't owl you back, I was really very grateful, but things were so hectic." She is blushing. Luna can hardly remember the last time anyone paid so much attention to her feelings, though logically she knows that she was with her father mere hours ago. "Are you—I mean—do you think you'll keep the paper going?"

"I suppose I'll try, if the Death Eaters haven't burned the house and the presses down."

A moment of stricken silence falls between them, in which Hermione's cheeks flush an even deeper red. She seems to be on the point of an apology Luna would rather not hear, but she only says, "Oh." Then, "Yes, of course."

They are nearing the end of corridor, and the staircase leading to the kitchens. Hermione's steps quicken, but in the next moment Luna stops and pulls away from her.

"Luna." She cannot see Hermione's face, but she can hear guilt and worry in her voice. "I'm really very sorry—"

"What is this room?"

Hermione frowns, then follows the track of Luna's gaze to a semi-circular chamber hewn into the unbroken stone wall. Five iron doors are set in the curving aperture, all with narrow slits for windows. They stand just above Luna's eye level, and she can see nothing through them.

"Oh." Hermione's voice is suddenly brisk, and Luna feels for a moment that she has gone back in time, that Hermione-the-Head-Girl is standing beside her. "Those are nothing. Just some old closets. Come on, I'm about to faint dead from hunger."

She takes hold of Luna's arm again, and again Luna lets herself be led. But as she looks back over her shoulder at the rooms in the round chamber, her eyes settle briefly on the door in the middle. Through the small window she can see the cheerful red light of a large fire, and the flickering black shadow of movement inside.

*

Professor Lupin is drinking tea as he waits for them. Luna doesn't spot him just at first—she's never seen the Hogwarts kitchens before, and they are far larger than she expected—but Hermione knows where she is going, and Lupin gets to his feet as they approach.

"Luna, it's good to see you again." Lupin steps around the edge of the table and grips her hand briefly. Luna doesn't resent this, but she is beginning to think that she has been touched and grabbed by more people in the last twelve hours than ever before in her life. "Sit down, please, I believe the house-elves are—yes, here they come now."

Lupin takes his seat again, mostly to make room for the enormous platter zooming toward, supported invisibly by four diminutive bodies. Hermione, faced with the need for a quick decision, looks from Luna to Lupin, then slides onto the bench opposite Lupin and indicates Luna should join her there.

"Here is your tea, misses and master," says a voice from beneath the platter, as a large silver teapot, a plate of bread and cheese, and a large cake glide smoothly toward the table, followed by cups and dishes and silverware.

"Thank you very much," Hermione says, beaming. "What is your name?"

"I is called Dilly, miss," the lead house-elf replies.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Dilly." She extends her hand. "My name is Hermione. Would you join us for a cup of tea?"

Dilly's eyes grow very wide, and she take a step backward. "Oh, no miss. I thanks you, miss, for asking, but there is work that is needing to be done. Thank you, miss, goodbye!"

Hermione watches the four house-elves beat a hasty retreat in the direction of the ovens, and sighs. "Well, it's an improvement, anyway. Last year they all hid every time I came near the kitchens."

Professor Lupin reaches somewhat hastily for his tea and takes a long, noisy sip.

For the next several minutes they eat and do not talk. Luna does not feel any interest in the food initially, but after she takes her first sip of tea she becomes aware of a gnawing hunger, as though the searing liquid had awakened her stomach to long-dead sensation. She makes a sandwich of two enormous slices of bread and a huge wedge of cheese, tearing bite-sized pieces away with her teeth and avoiding eye-contact with either of her companions. They are equally hungry—or perhaps they are just polite. Either way, Luna feels herself relaxing for the first time in what seems an eternity.

When at last she is full to bursting, and just on the point of excusing herself to find a bed, Lupin speaks.

"I assume you'll be staying here at the castle, Luna? Or do you have family elsewhere?"

Luna blinks. Feels the grip of her father's hand around her elbow, shoving her up the staircase, while the front door of their house shivers under the weight of a Death Eater's fist. "I have no other family."

Lupin nods in that grave manner which seems always calculated to avoid any possible offense. "I only ask because Moody will want to know how to contact you once we have news of your father."

"What news can he have? My father is dead."

Hermione's forehead puckers and she stares into the bottom of her teacup.

"Of course. But he thought you would like to know...if we find his body..."

"He can burn the body. I have no need of it."

"Luna." Hermione looks sideways at Lupin, then shifts her gaze across the table toward Luna. "I know things have been happening rather quickly for you. Would you—like to talk about what happened?"

Luna shrugs, and her shoulders feel heavy. "There's little to tell. When we realized the house wards were being attacked, my father made me go upstairs to hide. I had just put on the invisibility cloak when they came in, and then Professor Snape was there. That's all."

Lupin shifts forward slightly. "Your father put himself between you and the Death Eaters."

"Yes." Luna studies the seams between the wooden planks of the table. "We knew they would be coming soon. We—I—was working on an experiment that would have let us escape together. But I didn't have time to finish it."

"I'm so sorry Luna." Hermione's eyes are bright.

Luna nods. "I know you are. But you needn't be. It's not as if we didn't know it was coming."

There is precisely enough time for Hermione and Lupin to trade one more quick, worried glance before the kitchens are swamped in darkness, and the air around them explodes into thunder. The four walls of the kitchen shudder violently, as though caught in a sudden cold wind, and in the next moment Luna realizes that she is lying on the floor, fallen beside her overturned chair.

The air is thick, filled with meaningless noises, and her ears are ringing. She is surrounded by the fluttering movement of the house-elves, their shrieks contrasting horribly with the leaden echoes that have filled the kitchen. She claps her hands over her ears to block the sound, but she can still feel them, needling, under her skin.

She is aware of the chaos around her, and she knows she ought to be worried about what has just happened. But somehow the floor beneath her feels soft as any bed, and the desire to sleep is incredibly strong; she hasn't felt so warm and safe since the battle of Hogwarts six months ago, when Madam Hooch carried her away from the fighting, and Madam Pomfrey tucked her into bed and gave her Dreamless Sleep potion. She feels as though is lying in the berth of a boat at sea, the water rocking her into oblivion.

She has no sooner than closed her eyes, however, when a hand grips her arms and jerks her upright, though she has become little more than dead weight. She hears Lupin's voice, whispering "Ennervate," and though there is nothing to see when she opens her eyes she can feel the artificial energy of the reviving spell tingling in her arms and legs. She gets to her feet, unsteady in the darkness.

Lupin does not release her arm. If anything, he is gripping it more tightly, and she can feel the heat and the shock of his breath against the side of her neck when he speaks. "Luna, listen to me. The wards have been compromised. You must get out of the castle, the Death Eaters will kill everyone they catch."

Luna's mouth is dry, and her head is strangely light on her shoulders. She stares in the direction of his voice, trying to find his eyes. "I'm not going to leave you here."

There is a low groan close to them; the voice is Hermione's, but Lupin ignores it, his voice pitched low. "Do you know the statue of the one-eyed witch?"

"Yes?"

"Tap it with your wand and say 'dissendium.' There is a hidden passage inside that will take you into Hogsmeade. You can Apparate from there."

She can hear distant wails, the thuds and crashes of dozens of bodies trying to navigate a maze of overturned tables and chairs. Panic begins to lance through the dim fog in her mind. She wrenches her arm from Lupin's grip and takes a step back. "What's wrong with Hermione?"

"She's injured. I'll stay with her, we'll both be right behind you."

"No." Tears begin to knot at the base of her throat. "I'm not leaving you here. I can help you with Hermione." She swallows hard. "Do you understand me, I'm not leaving anyone else behind."

Her eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness now, and she can the outline of Lupin, standing in front of her. Then she is blinded again, as the end of his wand ignites between them. She throws a hand up to shield her eyes, and begins fumbling in her robes for her own wand.

"Luna, please listen." Lupin's voice is hoarse. "The upper floors of the castle are breached right now, but those of us in the dungeons and cellars have a chance to escape. Listen to me!" he says, as she opens her mouth to protest. "Snape is down here too, but he doesn't know about the passageway. You have to lead him there. You know why the Death Eaters cannot take him."

Luna looks at him in the dim light. "I'll tell him and come back for you."

"There's no time." Lupin's eyes are wild. "You have to do this, Luna. You owe him your life."

She can now see Hermione, still and pale, leaning into Lupin's arm. Blood is trickling down the side of her face. Luna cannot tell if she is breathing.

She looks at Lupin again. Then she turns, stretches her wand before her, and begins to run.


7.

She falls three times before she reaches the kitchen doors. It does not occur to her to use magic to clear her path until she trips over a teapot and strikes her head on the sharp edge of an overturned table. When she reaches the corridor she takes the hem of her robe in hand and pulls it up to her knees, running down the pitch black corridor as she has never run in her life.

The struggle on the upper floors of the castle echoes like thunder over her head. She expects at any moment to come face to face with the fat, leering Death Eater she stunned at her house, what seems an age ago. But she meets no one.

Fear mounts with every door she passes. They all look alike even when the hallway is lit, and the farther she runs the more certain she is that she has forgotten the location of Snape's office, that she must turn around and go back to find him.

When she spots a thin beam of light emanating from the crack beneath a door ahead of her she sobs once, in relief, and runs straight at it, turning the latch and throwing her weight against it. There is no resistance, not even a ward, and when the door bursts open she nearly falls to the ground.

Snape is standing at his desk, looking at her as though he has never seen her before. His left hand is raised, a long, narrow vial of shimmering red liquid poised inches from his lips.

She knows, without knowing how, what the potion is, and what he is doing with it.

She opens her mouth to speak, and finding that she has no breath, gasps the words between great gulps of air.

"We have—to get out of here." She lifts a hand to wipe away the blood and the perspiration that is tricking into her eyes. "Professor Lupin told me—there's a passageway—upstairs."

He continues to watch her, neither moving nor speaking. Then his hand shifts, bringing the vial a fraction of an inch closer to his mouth.

A bolt of white heat flashes in front of her eyes, and in that moment of strange blindness she hears the chime of breaking glass. When the fog clears seconds later, she finds her wand pointed at Snape, who is looking at the remains of the now shattered vial in his hand. The red potion is dripping from his fingers, and blood is welling from three different small cuts on his face.

He looks from the vial to Luna. His eyes are wider than she would have ever thought possible.

She lowers her wand. "I owe you a life debt. You owe me the opportunity to repay it."

He takes a long, shuddering breath, and in that moment seems to come back to himself. He casts the broken vial onto his desk, and he speaks as she has never heard him speak, his voice tired and neutral, as though they had never spent a night flying on a magic carpet together. "The grounds have certainly been taken, and there is no way out of the castle that does not cross them."

"You haven't listened to me. Lupin told me how to reach a secret passageway that leads into Hogsmeade. It's just upstairs, but we have to go now or we won't reach it without being seen."

The corner of Snape's mouth assumes its familiar position, crooked a half inch close to his nose than the other half. The sight is strangely reassuring to Luna. "That is absurd. There are no secret passageways out of the castle that I do not know about."

Luna smiles back. "Yes of course, because Harry never managed to sneak out of the castle without you knowing how he managed it."

Snape's chin jerks up, and his nostrils flare. "Lupin. Of course. I should have realized...." He sighs suddenly, and shakes his head. "All right. Let us see this hidden passage of yours. I warn you, though, we are not likely to find our way to any portion of the castle not already under enemy control." He searches out his wand from amongst the clutter on top of his desk, and averts his eyes. "And I will not risk capture."

Luna doesn't speak, or otherwise acknowledge his words, except in spinning on her heel and walking back toward the door of his office. She hears the soft click of Snape's heels against the stone floor as he passes, then overtakes her, shoving her to side so that he is the first through the door. He pauses there a moment, then looks back at Luna over his shoulder.

"I have a brief chore to accomplish. You will wait here for me."

He is yards away before she can even open her mouth to protest, walking back in the direction of the kitchens and disappearing around a corner only a short distance down the corridor. She can hear the rusty complaint of a turning metal hinge, as a door long sealed is opened, then shut. Seconds later Snape has rounded the corner again in her direction, and before she has time to think of asking what he had done they are running together in the direction of the north stair.

The stairwell itself is deserted. The ground floor, however, is swarming with voices, none of them familiar to Luna save from nightmares of past battles.

Snape leans close to her. "The passage. It is hidden somewhere near the statue of the one-eyed witch, am I right?"

"Yes," Luna whispers, feeling somewhat cheated. "Tap it and say 'dissendium.'" "Ahh." In the dim light she can see the flash of his teeth, and she feels suddenly sorry for Harry.

She takes a step forward, intending to peer around the corner into the landing above, but Snape restrains her. "Wait," he says, and, withdrawing his wand, taps her on the head with it, whispering something unintelligible. He then does the same to himself, and, fascinated, she see him melt into the stone wall behind him.

"There's a spell for invisibility," she whispers.

"Camouflage only. It won't fool them if they are paying close attention, but we may be able to slip past in a distraction. Stay behind me."

He emerges into the hallway with long, slow steps, keeping his back to the wall. Luna walks close behind him. From where they stand the one-eyed witch is only a few yards away, a mere dash across the corridor to the round inset of enormously high windows. But several feet down the corridor a group of Death Eaters are marching seven abreast in their direction, and collapsed in their wake is the motionless form of Professor Sprout.

Luna claps a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of a gasp. She feels Snape's hand gripping her shoulder.

"We will wait until they pass before we cross," he whispers, almost too softly to hear. "They will see our shadows if we stand in direct light."

"Can't we help her?"

"No."

The Death Eaters are near enough now that Luna can feel the air moved by the swirl of their robes. She recognizes three of them from the battle at the Department of Mysteries, but the only one she knows by name is Lucius Malfoy, cruel and beautiful as an ancient stone sculpture. Snape's fingers dig into her flesh, and she stares hard at the Death Eaters as though she could wound them with her gaze.

She realizes, in that moment, that she would strike them if she could—use curses she has only read about to rip their skin from their bodies, cause their hearts to burst in their chests. She wants to attack them now more than she has ever wanted anything in her life. She would die, gladly, if she could kill just one of them.

Snape breathes, slowly, beside her, and she comes back to herself, remembering the debt she owes him. She is, in a very real sense, responsible for him now.

There will be time to die later.

She does not move until Malfoy and the others are so far down the corridor she can no longer hear their footsteps. Then she pulls away from Snape, and runs toward Professor Sprout.

"Luna," Snape whispers, and when she kneels beside the professor's body he is beside her.

. Sprout lies on her side, no wound or blemish apparent. When Luna turns her on her back she sees a thin trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth.

"Come away. You can do nothing for her."

"There may be others." Luna cannot tear her gaze from the wide, shocked eyes in the kindly face, still and paler than anything she has ever seen.

"Do you wish to join them?" He gets to his feet. There is no impatience or reprimand in his voice. "You cannot let yourself think about it.

"How?" she says, rising.

He does not answer. Luna closes the dead woman's eyes, and walks briskly to the statue, cold in the morning light.

The incantation works on the first try. The hump on the statue of the one-eyed witch opens, and Luna places one foot on the pedestal, preparing to climb in, when she notices that Snape is standing a few feet off, not moving.

She steps down. "You go first."

He does not look at her. He is gazing out the windows, a hand clenched at his side. "I am a teacher. I am entrusted with the defense of this castle."

"I won't leave without you."

"I can make you, if necessary."

"Not unless you are a coward."

He spins to face her, his nostrils wide and his mouth open.

Luna stands completely still, afraid that any movement will send him running the other direction. "You would have poisoned yourself when you thought there was no escape. Now there is an escape, you refuse it. Are you so afraid of living that you will go out of your way to die?"

"You know nothing." Snape's eyes are narrowed.

A door slams in the distance. Snape turns his head briefly to the side, and in the time it takes him to find her with his eyes again she has raised her wand hand to the level of his throat.

"I will compel you, if necessary." She steps away from the statue, without lowering her wand. "But I'm certain that would increase our chances of capture."

He watches her a long moment. Then, expelling a long breath, he walks to the statue, climbs over the pedestal, and lowers himself through the opening. She waits until she hears the impact of his feet on the ground below, then climbs up after him, pulling the hump of the statue down over her head.

She is disoriented in the darkness until the end of a lighted wand ignites before her. Snape is moving forward, the light stretched ahead of him. "Lumos," she whispers, and follows.

*

The passageway is frigid, and stretches before them for what seems like miles. Luna can see her breath as a white mist in the air whenever she exhales. The whole world has contracted to what she can see in the light at the end of their wands, the sway of Snape's long robes, the reflection of the fire against his hair.

She becomes wearier with every step, her legs and arms sluggish. At length she stumbles over the hem of her skirt, and catches herself against the pebbled stone wall of the passage.

Snape turns and, wordlessly, helps her up. He does not remove his hand from her back, even after she regains her footing. Thereafter they walk the passage side by side.

She does not know they have reached the end until Snape halts. She has been studying the ground beneath their feet, the small stones that scatter before their shoes. She watches as he points his wand at the small trapdoor over their head, and mutters, "Reveal."

Before her eyes the wooden rectangle shimmers, and becomes transparent. Beyond it, she can see a room, littered with empty, overturned boxes. It appears deserted.

She jerks, startled, as beside her Snape begins to laugh, low and quiet. She looks at him, as he continues to stare through the trap door.

"Honeydukes." He looks at her sidelong, then looks away, still laughing. "What are the time honored edicts and regulations of the greatest school in Britain compared to this?"

Luna can't help but feel that this is a highly inopportune moment for Snape to develop a sense of humor. "Can't we Apparate from here?"

"I wouldn't care to risk it. Jinxes as strong as those tend to fill the space between barriers." He traces the gap between the door and the aperture with a long finger. "Hogsmeade is occupied. We shall have to mind our step."

He opens the door, and climbs the steps. She waits, holding her breath, until he turns back and nods. Then she climbs up after him.

"To Grimmauld Place," he says, standing amongst the wreckage of the bare cellar, and then he is gone with a sharp crack.

She pictures the room in which they drank tea that morning, when the world was a different place. Then she follows.

*

Their tea things are still on the table in the parlor when she Apparates into Grimmauld Place seconds later. The white Death Eater's mask Snape had worn when she first saw him hours ago lies on the floor near the armchair. She looks at it now and cannot remember what impelled her to touch it then. She watches it now as though it were a snake, coiled to strike.

Snape is standing at the window, looking outside. "You haven't slept yet. There are beds upstairs. I believe you will find fresh linen in the cupboard."

Luna stares at the back of his head, unable to think of how she should reply. Anything she could force past the censorship of her teeth and tongue would be inadequate.

She is saved from all comment, however, when footsteps on the staircase distract them both. Neither of them have put their wands away yet, and they raise them in unison as a tall, thin figure in brown robes turns the corner into the parlor.

"Luna." Lupin glances from Luna to Snape and back again, and smiles. "Well done."

"Lupin." Snape lowers his wand, but does not put it away. He looks at Lupin as though he has something urgent to say, but he checks himself. He too glances at Luna, who suddenly feels like a child who has strayed into the adult's conversation and must be put to bed before matters of importance can be concluded.

"Hermione?" she says to Lupin, partly out of concern, and partly to show Snape that he, too, is ignorant in some matters.

"She's upstairs, resting. She'll be fine." Lupin speaks in the same careful, polite tone he used when offering her tea and inquiring after her dead father. "How are you? That gash looks nasty."

Luna touches the patch of dried blood at her temple. Snape jerks and looks at her as though noticing her face for the first time. It occurs to Luna that in the last months he has probably become more accustomed to seeing people bloody and injured than not. "I feel fine, but I should wash. Where is Hermione staying?"

"First door past the washroom. I believe she's sleeping now, but there's another bed there, already turned down."

Luna nods. She looks at Snape, who has turned his back to her again, and mounts the stairs with heavy, silent steps. When she is halfway up she stops, and flattening herself to the wall, turns to listen.

"...compromised the wards?"

Lupin's voice is too low to hear. There is one word which sounds like "Aurelia," which she knows to be Professor Vector's given name, and another that sounds like "Flitwick."

"...Honoria Sprout," she hears Snape say. "...Malfoy, Rosier...Lestrange."

Her vision becomes blurred then, and she throws a hand against the wall to steady herself. Her head is aching, and for the first time she is aware that the cut over her eye is stinging, throbbing in time with her pulse. Still steadying herself against the wall, she turns and climbs the stairs to the landing.

She walks to the loo, then turns and stands in the doorway. From this perspective the upper floor of Grimmauld Place is similar to her house in Ottery St. Catchpole. She stares in the direction of the staircase, waiting for the fat man in mask and robes to come thundering into view. This time she will not waste time stunning him. She will use the curse Hermione taught the D.A. two years ago, the one the nearly killed her when she dueled Antonin Dolohov at the Department of Mysteries. A flick of Luna's wand, and she can slash his throat. A simple incantation, and she sever his heart from its moorings within his breast.

She steps inside the loo and faces the mirror. In the dim light she looks like the Bloody Baron, ghastly and only half alive. This makes her think of the Grey Lady, who failed her. She wonders what has happened to the ghosts now that Hogwarts is taken. Would they stay? Would the Death Eaters destroy them? Would they come to the Death Eaters in the night when they were unable to sleep, and speak to them of times past, before they were murderers?

She pours water from the jug into the wash basin, and when she cannot find a cloth she moistens the hem of her white sleeve. She scrubs at the dried blood over her eye, and continues to rub when the cut begins to sting and bleed again. The pain is concrete; she holds on to it, scrubbing harder as the sensation of being again within her body begins to dull the screams mounting in her throat.

A moment later she realizes that she is crying. She lowers her arm, and a fresh trickle of blood runs down the side of her face. She sits on the edge of the tub and folds her arms over her stomach.

"Luna?"

She lifts her head, and though her eyes are swollen she can see Hermione, thin and pale, standing in the doorway, supporting herself against the frame. There are dark bruises down the left side of her face, and one of her eyes is swollen shut.

Luna stands, unsteadily, and takes a step toward her. Hermione holds her arms out at the same time, and Luna lets herself be embraced. She leans her head against Hermione's shoulder, though she knows she is staining the other girls' robes with tears and blood.

When she has cried until she is barely able to stand, Hermione puts an arm around her waist, and slowly, Hermione limping, they help each other across the landing to the bedroom, where the promise of a bed fills Luna with so much relief that she wants to cry again. Only after she and Hermione are both underneath covers, shivering and silent, does Luna realize that at the foot of the stairs a tall figure in black robes had watched them as they passed, as though observing some sacred rite he dare not intrude upon.


8.

"Do not waste my time, Lupin. The wards were compromised from within. I am not asking you to confirm; it is clear enough. I am merely asking which members of staff you were looking at before the attack came."

Snape's hands are trembling though he has concealed them far enough beneath his robes to hide the fact from Lupin. He is not concealing his emotions with equal success. Strange, that with everything he has seen, his defenses are so undone by the breaching of the castle. Merely a building, a construction of wood and stone, he tells himself, knowing it for a lie.

"We monitored everyone, Severus. Even you and I were watched. Even Dumbledore was asked to account for himself." Lupin stops, and sighs heavily.

"Lupin." His voice is not quite a growl. "Remember to whom you are speaking."

"Aurelia Vector did not make contact with her liaison last night. I feared her taken, but she was present at the meeting this morning. She intentionally avoided me, and as I was leaving the castle I saw her standing over Filius Flitwick. He was dead, and when she saw me, she ran."

Snape stops pacing and positions himself again before the window, watching Lupin's reflection in the glass. When Lupin turns his back, Snape grants himself the momentary indulgence of resting his head in both hands, and closing his eyes. He has recovered by the time Lupin has turned his direction again.

"Naturally, there be may be any number of explanations for her behavior...."

"However many plausible explanations you could devise, there are double that number of reasons to believe the worst." A child from a neighboring brownstone comes running into view, in pursuit of a small black and white ball. Snape steps away from the window and takes a heavy seat in the armchair.

"She was your pupil. Would you give up on her so willingly?"

"She had....pressures to contend with that nothing, even the threat of my displeasure, could effectively counterbalance." He studies his hands. "The weight of her blood was a considerable burden to her."

"No less than yours was to you," Lupin observes, his voice mild.

"Comparisons are odious. Aurelia remained in contact with her brother long after becoming estranged from the rest of her family. Dolohov has been courting her intensely." Snape stands up, and begins to pace. "She hasn't left the castle for months."

"Whereas you cut off all connection with your family when you were sixteen."

"And still made regrettable choices. So you see, there are no reliable predictors of behavior."

"Agreed. I am still not prepared to call her a traitor until we know more. Did you observe anything of note on your way out?"

"The safeguards over Longbottom held. He was gone before we were. Malfoy's band had taken the ground floor; Rosier, Rodolphus Lestrange, that lot were all with him." He pauses, because it seems necessary. "Honoria Sprout is dead."

A movement at the top of the stair catches his eye; Hermione Granger, hobbling past in her dressing gown, her arm around a disheveled, luminous figure in white. He realizes with a start that this is Luna, seeming suddenly ten years older than she did half an hour ago.

He feels a sudden pang of guilt, a feeling he is coming to associate with the girl. He finds this troubling, but Lupin's voice calls his attention back to the parlor before he can begin to dwell on it.

"I believe that most of the Order Apparated away directly after the meeting. Dumbledore, I know, left to check on Harry. Hermione and I only remained behind because Hermione was concerned for Luna."

Snape turns his back on the stair. "Then we must assume that the attack on the school is unknown save to those of us who escaped. We should alert the Burrow, the safehouses. Dumbledore as well, though chances are excellent he already knows."

"Hermione and Luna need time to rest."

Snape arches an eyebrow, and welcomes the first uncomplicated emotion he has felt for days. "I fail to see how that bears on the situation."

"Do you intend to leave Luna here alone?"

"She is hardly my responsibility."

"No more would I describe Hermione as my responsibility, but I have no intention of leaving her here injured and unguarded."

"Your relationship with Miss Granger is not one that bears speculation."

For only the second time in the thirty odd years of their acquaintance, there is a flash of something dangerous in Lupin's gaze. He opens his mouth, but the next voice to speak is not his.

"Indeed, Professor Snape, I think we can all agree that speculations into affairs that don't concern us inevitably prove tiresome to everyone involved." Hermione emerges from the staircase, one hand cinching her dressing gown, the other gripping the bannister.

"Should you be up, Hermione?" Lupin moves toward her, but she waves him off and sits in the armchair Snape vacated a few minutes ago.

"I couldn't help but overhear your gallant defense of me, Remus, and though I do appreciate it, I agree with Professor Snape. I'm not fit to move yet, and poor Luna is so tired that she's hysterical. We'll be perfectly safe here while you warn the others. Once we're useful again we can make our way to the Burrow."

Snape offers her a smile, and a small, ironic bow. "An excellent notion, Miss Granger. If you will excuse me."

He leaves the room without waiting for Lupin to offer further protest. He heads, not for the Apparition parlor, but for the kitchens, where less than twelve hours ago, and in another world, he made tea for a bewildering girl and tried to come to terms with the radical new shape of his destiny.

It is no wonder if he lacks something in self-awareness, he muses, when the events that provoke self-examination so rarely afford the opportunity to conduct it at leisure.

He rifles the herboire and, conjuring a pen and parchment, scrawls several lines of writing he knows full well is legible only to him. Leaving the cupboard doors open and vials strewn over the counter, he turns back for the parlor, parchment in hand.

Halfway down the hall, he stops. Through the parlor door, which stands wide open, he can see Lupin and Granger, embracing. He halts, unable to look away, despite the roil of disgust in his gut.

His earlier comment to Lupin notwithstanding, he had not actually supposed the two of them were....intimate. A blushing, half-secret schoolboy's infatuation seems more Lupin's style, especially when the subject of his infatuation is someone as brazen as Granger.

An interminable period of time seems to pass until Lupin steps back, kisses her cheek, and Apparates. Snape shuts his eyes and tries to rid his mind of the image, uttering a silent prayer of thanks to whatever semi-merciful deity allowed him to witness the scene but spared him the agony of walking in on it blindly.

Hermione turns in the next moment and sees him standing outside the door. She smiles, her lips thin. "And here we were just discussing the infelicity of prying into other people's affairs."

"Whatever knowledge I have of your private affairs, or of Lupin's, I owe entirely to a series of unhappy accidents." He steps from the hallway, into the parlor, shutting it behind him pointedly. "Luckily, there are potions one can take for the nausea."

"May I ask you something?" She plows ahead without waiting for the requested permission. "What is it about us, precisely, that so often causes the petulant third year in you to surface?"

Snape arches an eyebrow, hoping that the flush he can feel gathering around his collar hasn't crept into any of the visible areas of his head and neck, "Us, Miss Granger?"

"Harry's friends. Ron and I, Ginny, Lupin, Sirius, when he was alive—not to mention Harry himself. Now that you can't humiliate us during Potions anymore, you make a point of inserting nasty and useless remarks into perfectly civil conversations. Why must you make things so difficult?"

Snape lifts his chin. It's an easy way to avoid looking directly into her eyes. "I hold nothing against any of your little school friends, Potter included, that I do not hold against all selfish, undisciplined, disrespectful children—"

"Oh, would you just stop it!" Hermione shouts at him. She seems to take herself by as much surprise as she has taken Snape; she runs a hand over her face, and when she speaks again her voice is much calmer. "Really, Professor, isn't it about time you came up with a new story? That one ceased to be remotely convincing when we were in sixth year. We aren't children anymore. And this still doesn't begin to explain your hostility toward Remus."

Snape studies her a moment before answering, despite the fact that, with this question, he is on much firmer ground than before. "In the normal course of events, I am perfectly ambivalent toward Remus Lupin. He lacks distinctive flaws as well as distinctive virtues, and so he is of no interest to me.

"When I observe, however, that he has chosen to abandon his normal measure of relative good sense and conduct an—affair, with his own student...." Snape's nostrils flare delicately. "My feelings shift rather dramatically to the left of ambivalence."

"Actually, I'm sure you haven't forgotten that Remus is no longer a teacher, or that he has you to thank for that fact. More to the point, I left Hogwarts two years ago. If that is the basis for your disapproval, I'd say you're reaching."

There are bright spots of color over her cheekbones, hectic against the pallor her skin, and she is breathing somewhat more heavily than normal. Because, he tells himself, he does not have time to attend her in a swooning fit, he takes a careful seat on the edge of a silk armchair and leans forward. After a moment of watching him suspiciously, Hermione also sits, and waits.

"All I know is this, Miss Granger. We are at war. Precision is demanded of each of us who fight the enemy, and high emotion is a deadly threat to precision. And when there is a significant age difference....between lovers....there are inevitably complications which....increase that threat."

Now he is certain that the blush has crept above his collar, but Hermione has begun looking at him with less anger and something more like interest.

"You sound as though you're speaking from experience."

For the second time in the space of an hour he pushes thoughts of Aurelia Vector from his mind. "It is a common scenario."

He stands up, unfolds the piece of parchment he has held crumpled in his hand throughout the conversation, and offers it to her. She takes it, and looking at him with a furrowed brow, begins to study it.

"If you follow those instructions precisely, the mixture will, I believe, go far to restoring you and Miss Lovegood to a state of relative health. All the ingredients can be found in the kitchens." He smiles tightly. "I understand it may be some time before you feel up to it, but I would strongly encourage that you see to it yourself. Miss Lovegood lacks your careful hand with potions."

"I see." She looks up at him, and nods. "That is very kind of you."

"Not at all. Now if you will excuse me, it is past time I was gone."

He walks to the Apparition parlor, because he does not like to Apparate in front of other people unless it is necessary. A moment later he is hundreds of miles away.


9.

The violent shove which sends him flying against the nearest wall comes as no surprise. Neither does the wand tip pressing against the large vein of his throat, or the stench of goat in his nostrils.

"Hello, Moody," he says, recognizing him even in the shadows. He smiles with genuine pleasure, knowing Moody will see it and be irritated.

"What are you doing here, Snape?" Moody's luminous blue eye is just visible in the half light. He does not slacken his grip.

"A pleasure to see you as well, Moody. I trust your holiday with Potter has done you good?"

Moody snorts, and then he does takes a step back, lowering his wand. "Right. Holiday. Very clever." He sheathes his wand. "What's your business, then?"

"I need to see Dumbledore."

"Why?"

"Hogwarts is taken. An untold number of the Order are dead or captured." It is a mark of his exhaustion that he nearly spits the words into Moody's face.

He cannot read the other man's expression, but there is a long pause before he replies, as though the news is not unexpected.

"Dumbledore can't see you."

"And why is that?"

"He's dying."

There is no reason Snape should feel shocked. But all the air leaves his lungs, and the only bodily sensation he is aware of is a faint prickling up and down his arms.

Moody continues. "He collapsed an hour ago. Hasn't moved since. Knew you were coming, though. Keeps asking for you."

"Why then...." Snape clears his throat in an effort to keep his voice from shaking. "Why can I not see him?"

"Poppy's shut herself away with him. Trying every trick in the book and writing a few of her own."

"But you have no hope?"

Moody looks away. "All you have to do is look at him."

Snape continues to stand with his back against the wall. Moody takes a few steps toward the door, then stops, leaning against the lintel. He speaks without turning around. "Come with me. I'll take care of Poppy."

Snape sheathes his own wand with a hand whose shaking he no longer tries to hide. He follows Moody outside, raising an arm to shield his eyes from the light.

The shack, the whole compound, sits on top of a mountain. When he steps out the door his feet strike rock and dirt and grass. Despite himself—despite everything—he is forced to be still and notice the world around him. From where they stand, there is nothing to see save an oasis of blue trees canopied by violet mist. The air smells of fresh rain and heavy magics.

From the perspective of scenery, he can't imagine a better place to die.

Moody begins to walk down a steep path carved into the mountain. Despite his wooden leg he outdistances Snape easily, leaping from rock to rock while Snape slips and missteps, falling twice. When the crude wooden steps run out, Snape foregoes all pretense of dignity and slides the remaining distance on the side of his foot. Once at the bottom of the hill Moody offers a hand up that Snape does not refuse.

Moody leads him from the path to the door of another shack, identical to the last save for the garden—there are neat lines of every healing herb Snape knows of, as well as several he doesn't recognize.

When Moody knocks, the voice that answers is so strained that it is barely recognizable as Poppy Pomfrey's. "There's been no change. I will call you if you are needed."

Moody opens the door just wide enough to fit his head through. "Snape's just come, Poppy. I think Dumbledore'll want to see him."

He takes a hasty step back as the door is flung open and Madam Pomfrey stares down on them both. Her neat cap and apron are gone; she wears a set of patched grey robes, wild tendrils of white hair haloing her face.

"What he wants is immaterial. He is my patient, and he's weak enough as it is—I won't have you upsetting him with Merlin knows what kind of horrible news—"

"I am well enough to see my friends, Poppy." The quiet voice from within the little house should have been barely audible, but it silences them all in an instant.

Pomfrey closes her eyes, and the slump of her shoulders speaks of capitulation. Wordlessly, she stands aside. Moody takes her by the arm and begins leading her toward a small oak grove, where seven trees form a semi-circle around a group of smooth white sitting stones.

Snape enters the cottage, fighting the urge to close his eyes. He does not want to see Dumbledore frail, dying. Like a child, he retains the irrational surety that the worst cannot be true, so long as he does not have to face the proof of it.

He looks toward the bed in the corner of the room, and in the same instant bites his tongue, afraid what he will say if he lets himself speak. It takes all the strength in his body to approach the bed and the still form beneath the blankets.

"Severus." A faint stirring follows the sound of the voice, and on the table in the middle of the room a candle begins to glow.

Dumbledore face, sunken and weary, is softened by the light. His eyes are closed, and when he speaks, his mouth barely moves. "I am glad to see you."

"You should have told us you took the Guardian Potion." He knows they are useless, but the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them.

"To what end?" Thin lips form a smile. "You could not have been any more vigilant than you were."

"There were preparations we could have made. You are secret keeper for half the Order's safehouses, we—" The knot in his throat forces him to stop. "You should have told us."

"How many were taken with the castle?"

Snape delays his answering by looking to the left and right of him for a chair. None are to be found, so he conjures one for himself and draws it up to the bed, sitting. "There is no way of knowing."

"What do you know?"

"Lupin, Granger, the Lovegood girl—we were the only ones to have made it to Grimmauld Place by the time I came here. The others may have gone to the Burrow, I cannot be sure. Lupin is there now to alert them."

Dumbledore's eyes flicker open. The are bright and clear, even in the half light. "Miss Granger—Miss Lovegood?"

"Both injured. They remained in London."

Dumbledore's chin dips a fraction of an inch, the tiniest of nods. They sit in silence for the next minute.

"Neville Longbottom...." Dumbledore seems to lose all air in the effort of pronouncing the name. "He arrived here, with his caretakers, a few minutes before you. He is very weak."

"You know that I have never been so convinced of his importance as the rest of you."

"You have never had faith....in the sometime divinity of madness." Dumbledore smiles, and Snape has to look away.

"Listen to me, Severus. I have little time remaining. The more fully Voldemort's supporters take possession of the castle, the further I will slip from you. I must have a promise from you before you go. Will you give it to me?"

There is nothing he can say, no resistance he can offer to the weight of a dying request. "In twenty years," he says, "I have refused you nothing."

"Yes, that is true. There is....such faithfulness in you." Dumbledore closes his eyes again and draws a long, rattling breath. "I want you to promise me that you will believe Neville. Whatever he may tell you. Whatever he may say. However....incredible, or offensive it may seem."

"Headmaster." Snape can feel heat rising in his face.

"I will have your promise, Severus. You must trust that I would not ask this lightly."

"He would no sooner confide in me than I would invite a confidence from him. You should ask this of anyone but me." You should ask of me anything but this, he does not say.

"It cannot be anyone but you, for reasons that will become clear. Now...will you give me your word?"

Snape's fist tightens in his lap. He knows the walls are closing in, but he tries one more time. "I will have no opportunity to care for a child, much less an invalid, in the coming days. That, you must grant me."

"I do not ask you to assume guardianship of Neville. He will remain here, for the time being. I want no more, no less than I have asked of you." Dumbledore smiles again. "I only want you....to have faith in him."

Snape jumps as the door swings open, hinges complaining. Pomfrey stands there, grasping a bunch of athelas in her left hand, her mouth set in a thin line.

"Severus?" Dumbledore's voice holds him.

Snape rises, lifting his head and closing his eyes. "In this, as in all things, I am your servant."

Dumbledore does not move, but contentment plays at the corners of his lips. "No, dear boy. Never that."

It is as much of a dying benediction as Snape can endure. He brushes past Pomfrey on his way through the door and stands in the sunlight a moment, searching for breath.

*

He does not have the energy to insult Moody by moving away as he approaches. He keeps his seat on the white boulder and looks carefully at nothing.

"There's some things we need to go over before you head off again." Moody arranges himself on one of the stones nearby, and rests his staff across his lap. "First off, we found Leopold Lovegood's body a few hours ago. Been dead awhile so far as we can tell, but they had their fun with him first. Though I don't see as we need to tell the lass that."

"I agree. What else?"

"Priscilla Proctor's MLES division responded to a call near the Lovegood place early this morning. Your old crowd. Caught the merrymakers in the act and ambushed 'em, neat as you please. Five dead, two captured." Moody pauses. "Mulciber's one of the two."

Now Snape does look at Moody. The implication of his words is not slow to sink in, but Snape is determined not to understand him. "You want me to go back."

"Don't want you to do anything. Just thought you should have all the facts."

"Mulciber's capture means nothing." Snape's fingers dig into the rock, white knuckled. "Crabbe was there as well."

"Thought you said Luna hexed him."

"He has already come to doubt me. I fled when the school was taken. If I present myself to him now, it will be the end. He will turn my mind like the pages of a book."

"You telling me you never lied your way out of a sticky spot before?"

"This," Snape breathes, "hardly qualifies as 'sticky'."

Moody shrugs, and, taking his staff in hand, gets to his feet again. "Like I said. Just thought you should be in possession of the facts." He tips the bowler hat over one eye. "Heading back directly?"

Snape gets to his feet as well, and though it is on the tip of his tongue to say yes, he does not. "I've one more errand to complete before I go." He smiles, and the feeling is unpleasant. "I need to see Neville Longbottom."

*

He follows Moody back up the steep path to the large building that houses the majority of the compound. Both of them are out of breath by the time they reach the top, and Snape's fingernails are black with dirt, his palms smeared green with grass and dented with the impression of sharp, tiny pebbles.

"Forgot to mention, going down's the easy part," Moody grins.

"I'm sure." Snape dusts his hands against his robes and pushes his hair back from his face. Only then does it occur to him that he could have simply Apparated.

He watches as Moody walks to the door and removes his wand. He wields it like a pen, tracing the figures of runes and numbers in blue light across the doorframe. They glow brilliantly for a moment, then fade, though it seems to Snape that he can still see a faint impression of them upon the air.

Moody turns the latch and pushes the door open, then steps back. "I should stay near Dumbledore in case Poppy needs me for something. Neville's last door at the end of the hall."

Snape arches an eyebrow. "The room is not warded?"

"All you'll need is your wand. Nothing fancy. Chief reason for locking him up at school was to keep other people from wandering in on him, much good as that did. We've still got his wand."

"I see. Thank you." Snape starts for the door, and Moody takes a few steps away before stopping, and half turning back in Snape's direction.

Snape pauses, and waits. His mind races ahead, trying to anticipate what Moody will say to him. It is the way he handles hostile conversations, the few seconds' advantage enabling him to choose his reply with care.

"Don't go out of your way to upset the boy."

The corner of Snape's mouth spasms involuntarily. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Dragondung. He gets on your nerves. Gets on mine too, truth to tell. Still." Moody turns back, and his next words are nearly lost in the wind. "All of here's got sorrows enough."

Snape turns his back and walks into the house, his footsteps echoing hollow against the bare wooden floor.

He bypasses the staircase and walks down the corridor, into the flood of light from the wide window open at the end of the hall. There are doors to the left and right, most closed, some open, revealing neat, spartan bedchambers and cold fireplaces. All are silent as the dead, except for the last door on the right; he can hear rhythmic pacing, objects beings picked up and set down again.

He lifts his wand, preparing to open the door without warning. But he remembers Moody's words, and, repressing a sigh, knocks.

"What?" There is the sound of breaking glass, and Snape, unable to control himself, rolls his eyes. "Who—what—who's there, what do you want?"

You promised the Headmaster you would believe him, Snape thinks to himself. And I do. I believe him mad.

He taps the door once with his wand, there comes the sound of a latch releasing. The door opens slowly of its own volition, hinges whinnying in high pitched complaint.

"You."

Though Neville is staring, an expression of loathing and fear twisting his features, Snape must recover from his own surprise before stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. He has not seen the boy since the battle six months ago, and the change is....dramatic.

"I never wanted to see you again." Neville is hoarse. He is backed against a bureau, his skeletal fingers buckling as they attempt to dig into the wood.

"I am hardly here for my own amusement, Longbottom." The sneer is twisting his lips before he can reconsider it.

The sound of Neville's scream, high and anguished, has him taking a step back even before he realizes that the boy is running towards him, claw-like fingers reaching for his throat. A year ago the impact would have been more substantial; as it is, Snape barely staggers as the wasted body hurls into him. Nonetheless, the strength of his hands is something more than Snape would have predicted. He can feel bruises forming as Neville's fingers close around his neck, thumbs digging into his windpipe.

Snape drops his wand before he can give in to temptation. He grabs the boy's wrists and pries them away, then shoves him backwards. Neville stumbles, then throws himself forward again, sobbing and snarling. Snape meets him in mid-stride, seizing his shoulder and using the leverage to spin him so that he is facing away. He then hooks one arm around his neck and the other around the waist. Neville's fingernails carved bloody crescents into his flesh before he manages to throw the boy onto his bed.

Panting, he finds his wand and immobilizes the writhing creature before he can recover and attack yet again.

Snape drops into an armchair beside the bed, and looks at Neville, who stares up with wide eyes. He drags the cuff of a sleeve over his brow, and sheathes his wand.

"That," he says, "is why wizards do not generally indulge themselves in fisticuffs. However cathartic they may be, wands are simply more effective."

"If you hurt me," says Neville, teeth chattering, "the others will find out."

"Really? I hear no one coming, despite your vigorous attempts to injure me."

"I knew it." Neville's eyes are hot, his gaze unsteady. "I always knew you were trying to destroy me."

"If I wanted to 'destroy' you, I could have done so a hundred times already, and at far greater convenience to myself. I am here now at the Headmaster's behest, and for no other reason." Snape permits himself a smile. "Though I am not sorry I came—I wouldn't have missed that display for the world."

Trembling, Neville stops trying to break the invisible bonds tying him to the bed. He slumps back, tears rolling over the swell of his too-prominent cheekbones.

"Tell me, Longbottom. Why are you here?" Snape leans back in his seat, his hands folded in his lap. He does not trust himself to move from the chair, not while his blood is still hot with the remembered pleasures of breaking a pathetic creature while it struggles. "What makes you so extraordinary that all the maneuverings of this resistance have come to be based on the pictures in your brain?"

"Go away." Neville rolls his head to the side, facing away from Snape. "I hate you. You took her away."

Snape feels his body still itself, as though, subconsciously, he has scented some near danger. "What are you talking about?"

"She was so beautiful. I hadn't seen her for so long, and then she came to me, and you took her away. You made her forget me." His voice is muffled as he buries his face in the bedclothes.

"You're blithering," Snape says, though there is a familiar twisting in his gut.

"I see her every night. In the sky. She burns white, she carries the dead. Like the moon." His voice grows weaker. "It's in that room. Behind the locked door."

The restraining charm, cast weakly, is wearing off. Neville pushes himself upright with obvious effort, moving with slow, exaggerated gestures, as though under water. "They've stolen the moon. They've got it locked up."

None of the responses that come to him in the first minute make it past his lips. At last he sets aside the need to cull logic from the boy's soliloquy, and says the only thing that seems fitting. "Where?"

Neville blinks twice, and looks at Snape the way Snape so often looked at him, as though he had just added twice the amount of leech juice needed for a Shrinking Solution. "You know where. In the Department of Mysteries."

I want you to promise me that you will believe Neville. Whatever he may tell you. However....incredible it may seem.

Snape rises, and stares down at Neville, who stares back, his eyes red, shadows beneath them that were not present when Snape first entered the room. "You don't believe me."

Snape pulls his wand from the sheathe in his boot, and frees Neville from the remnants of his restraining charm. He does not do it for Neville's benefit.

He turns on his heel and sweeps from the room, throwing the door shut behind him. The glass in the window panes rattle with the force of the slam, and the walls seem to vibrate with weight of his steps.

He leaves by the first door he comes to, which is not the door he entered by. The view is entirely different from here, and he leans against the wall a minute, listening as a hawk flies, screaming, overhead.

There is a lake in the distance, and three figures walking along the shore, pushing a boat into the water. One of them falls into the water, and the tallest doubles over at the waist. He can just make out the sound of laughter, carried on the wind.

He pushes Potter from his mind, because there is no room for disdain amidst everything else. He follows a plain dirt path leading to the front of the house, until the sound of laughter is lost in the sound of the wind in the trees.

He Apparates to the foot of the downhill path, and finds Moody seated by the oak grove. Poppy Pomfrey sits beside him, sobbing into her hands.

Moody looks up, and for the first time since Snape has known him there is uncertainty in his face. "Get out of here, Snape," he growls, getting to his feet. "Go and warn them."

Snape closes his eyes. Heat is spreading all throughout his body, searing his throat and eyes, restricting his breath. The hand at his side curls into a fist. There is strength there still. It is good to be reminded.

"Go!"

He pulls his wand from his sleeve, and Disapparates.


10.

The first face he sees when arrives at Grimmauld Place is Aurelia Vector's.

In that moment, he is a soldier. No conscious thought enters his mind. His wand, already in hand, is instantly at her throat, and before she has so much as opened her mouth to speak, she is bound, neck to ankle, in rope.

He stands there, breath returning slowly, calmed by the sight of her immobilized. She looks at him with unfathomable eyes.

"Professor."

Fear strikes him for the first time as he realizes that the voice is close to his ear and he has not yet seen the speaker. He spins to face her, but even after he recognizes Luna it takes a deliberate effort to lower his wand.

"You're awake." It is the adrenaline, he tells himself, that reduces him to making such obvious statements.

"Yes," she says, no chastisement in her voice. "So is Hermione. Or she was, when she left. She's at the Burrow now. She might have gone to sleep again there."

Snape blinks. He his sure that he has only heard one of every three words she has said, but somehow the mere sound of her voice soothes him.

"When did she," he jerks his head back in Aurelia's direction, "arrive?"

"Not long ago. Just after Hermione left. She was looking for you."

Exhaustion overtakes him suddenly, as though a door long shut that has been thrown wide. He reaches for the arm of the nearest chair and lowers himself into it, gripping his wand, looking at the floor.

After a few seconds he looks back up at Luna. "Miss Lovegood. If you would oblige me, I should like to spend some time alone with Professor Vector."

She nods. It is a gracious gesture, as though it pleases her to do him a favor. She glides from the room, and turns for the staircase.

When he is certain she is out of earshot, he stands facing Aurelia. Maintaining eye contact, he raises his wand, mutters the summoning charm, and opens his right hand. Two small vials materialize there; one is filled with clear potion, the consistency of water, and the other is a shimmering blue. He slips the blue vial into his pocket. The clear vial he uncorks.

He must be quick. Dumbledore is dead; the Fidelius Charm is unraveling even now, and the house is no longer secure. But there is time enough for this.

Wordlessly, he crosses the distance between himself and the bound woman. He sheathes his wand long enough to grip her jaw in his free hand and wrench it so that she is forced to open her mouth, crying out in pain. With the other hand he tips the vial and pours an inch's worth of the potion into her mouth. He quells the vindictive urge to make her swallow the entire vial; there will be other uses for the rest of the potion, and an overdose will make her babble unintelligently.

He knows that if she meant him harm he would already be dead. She is skilled, more skilled than he, at wandless magic, and in the moments between sheathing his wand and giving her the potion she could have freed herself and repelled him, long enough at least to reclaim her wand.

Knowing this, he hurts her still, because she has caused him suffering, both nine years ago and in the last two hours. He does not allow himself to wonder which injuries, past or present, motivate him more.

He stands over her as she chokes on the liquid, and does not return to his chair until her eyes have begun to glaze. When saliva begins to bubble at the corner of her mouth, he asks the first question.

"Did you break the castle wards?"

"No." She says it without hesitation, but the relief of exoneration is not in her voice.

"Did you provide any Death Eater with the means to break the castle wards?"

She opens her mouth, then closes it. A sheen of perspiration appears on her brow; she is fighting the serum. "Not...intentionally."

His fingers tighten on the arm of the chair. "Explain."

"My brother asked to see me."

"When?" All the Hogwarts fires have been monitored for the last four years, and no owl has reached the school in the last month.

"We have mirrors."

Anger, irritation, rise hot in his throat. They should have known this. Two-way mirrors are more dangerous than either fires or owls. "How did you admit him?"

"I...." She coughs, violently, and after a moment begins to gasp for air. When Snape makes no move to help her, she struggles to regain speech. "I never intended...." Her eyes close, and the despair in her voice rises with the pitch. "Severus, there are many truths!"

He keeps his gaze steady, and forbids expression in his voice. "Start with the simplest, then."

"The simplest?" She shakes her head, and strands of dark hair fall across the white brow, into the brightness of her black eyes. "I love my brother."

"Then tell me what you did for him."

"I disabled the wards....on my fire. I thought the monitors would see him. I thought....they would arrest him, as soon as he entered the castle. I meant to trap him." She closes her eyes, and tears escape the pressure the lids. "I love my brother. I wanted him in prison, where he could not be killed. Where he could not kill anyone else."

Unbidden, Snape sees Dolohov laughing, doubly familiar features glowing with the pleasures of the hunt, the kill. A dull pain begins to throb behind his eyes, a white light that pulses as though signaling some danger.

She is the last living person with whom he has ever shared intimacy, and in memory of it he permits himself the luxury of resting his head against the heel of his hand. "What went wrong?"

"Everything." Her laugh is brittle, tinged with hysteria. "I did not smother him in his cradle when we were children. I did not throw myself from the North Tower once it became clear that he had no intention of releasing me. A daughter of the blood."

"Aurelia." He can afford to be gentle for one moment. "Explain to me how he corrupted the wards."

"I let him in. I admitted him to my chamber. I took precautions, but Antonin anticipated them all. The moment I dropped my wards, he came through. With others. They overpowered me. Even Antonin helped them subdue me. It was over before I could do anything." She is weeping now, openly, childishly—from what he knows of her, for the first time since she was in swaddling clothes.

He gets to his feet, and looks down on her. Too tired to refuse the thought, it occurs to him that they have shared a truer intimacy in this than ever existed between them as lovers.

He turns his back on her, and walks toward the parlor door.

"Forgive me, Severus." Her voice, too weary for passion. Is merely pleading.

He pauses a moment, listening. Then he walks out into the corridor, and does not look back.

*

He goes to the kitchen because he believes that Luna is upstairs. Instead, he finds her seated at the kitchen table, fingers curled without tension around a cup of tea. There is a teapot and two more cups, empty, on the table before her. She looks up as he enters, smiles.

It is a fitting time for confessions, he decides, and sits in the only other chair at the table, beside her. She does not acknowledge the heaviness with which he takes his seat, except to pour tea into one of the empty cups and hand it to him. The parallel with the morning's tableau does not escape him.

"Luna," he says, and wonders for a moment when she became 'Luna' to him.

"I never studied Arithmancy, but Hermione did. She seemed to like Professor Vector very much."

He shuts his eyes hard, and holds the tea cup without drinking, brittle fingers absorbing the warmth.

"Dumbledore is dead," he says, because he can think of no appropriate preamble, and because he needs to hear aloud the words no one has yet spoken.

She says nothing, and when he opens his eyes again he is startled to find her gazing at him, her face expressionless except for a faint crinkling at the corner of her eyes. A day ago he would never have noticed it. Now he recognizes it for concern.

It makes the next words harder. "Your father is dead." Now the eyes upon him are sharper, brighter. "A Magical Law Enforcement hit squad arrived at your house shortly after you and I escaped. Seven of the nine Death Eaters there were taken or killed." He hesitates. "There is evidence that he—your father—died quickly."

"Relatively speaking."

There is only one reason why Proctor's understaffed squad of exhausted, marginally competent Aurors were able to rout a circle of Nine so successfully. They had been apprehended in the midst of their bacchanal, sluggish and stupid after a sustained frenzy. Moody had not said so, but he did not have to.

"Yes," he says. He has lied to her on this score once, but not twice.

"I knew he was dead," she says, eyes focused on nothing, as though the words are a matter for great concentration. "I had dreams...." She blinks, and her eyes regain focus.

A moment later he realizes that their focus is on him. "What will this mean for you?"

For some reason, the simple question, the calm blue eyes, make him acknowledge for the first time the true depth of his weariness, which is so deep that his body has ceased to call it weariness and now interprets it as pain. It no longer seems remarkable to him that she should ask such a question, or unthinkable that he should answer it with the sort of ruthless honesty he has only ever offered to Dumbledore.

"There is a chance that the Dark Lord remains unaware of my treachery. Mulciber is captured and unable to inform against me. Thanks to you, I was not observed fleeing the attack on the castle. The fact that I have not yet been summoned to account for myself reinforces this theory." He hears a strange sound, china rattling in its saucer. He looks down, and realizes that the hand grasping his tea cup is trembling.

He releases it, and folds his hands in his lap. "Our struggle against the enemy is in its final hours. If there is a chance that I can gather further intelligence, then I cannot in good conscience refuse to make the attempt. The nearer we come to the end, the more vital that information will be."

She nods. "You don't want to go back."

How had he ever thought her dull, ordinary? She has a mind like a the sharpest blade, penetrating obfuscation and seizing on the truths he is accustomed to burying beneath the vague, elegant language of his training. "No. I do not want to go back."

He stares at the swirl of knot and watermark in the plain wood of the kitchen table, and remembers the scarred, pitted surface of the work table in his Potions laboratory at Hogwarts. He thinks of Dumbledore, and then of Neville Longbottom, of promises and deceptions.

He is lost in thought until he becomes aware of some new warmth, a gentle pressure against his fingers. He looks from the table to the hands in his lap, and sees that there are three of them, one small and white.

A tiny, thwarted corner of his mind demands that he shake her off. He thinks of Aurelia, convinced for a moment that he can hear her sobs drifting in from the parlor. But he does not pull away.

He remembers, suddenly, the vial of blue potion hidden in the darkness of his robes. Guilt twists in his stomach, but it is not enough to impel him to action. He has lived with guilt long enough that it is no great matter to stow it now in the dark place he has prepared for it.

There are doors that have opened too rarely in the dark house of his mind. This near the end, he does not have the strength to deny himself a window.

*

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