The Touch Of Prometheus

THE TOUCH OF PROMETHEUS

Written originally in Portuguese, english version: Fabianna Bluhn

Thanks to my beta readers: Silvia Rodrigues and Audrey Fischer.

Chapter 10 – The Green Door

Sirius was laying in the middle of darkness, waiting for Remus Lupin. He had spent the whole day thinking about what had happened to his life after he was betrayed by Wormtail; about the time he spent in Azkaban and mainly about what he would do after his name got cleared. When he ran away from prison his only thought was to prove he was innocent, after all he had not thought of the future yet. Now Sheeba was back and so were zillions of thoughts and feelings that were hidden, or stuck in the bottom of his soul. It was her existence that made him think about the future and made him feel the urge to rebuild his life. If Dumbledore, Remus or anybody had told him he could not enter that subterranean cave the next day, he probably would not listen to this person and would enter anyway.

At this very moment, Remus arrived and switched on the room's light. His face showed despondency, as it always happened when the full moon was coming (and it was coming the next day). "Sirius, do you know what electricity is?"

"No, but I don't like," Sirius said as he put his hands on his face, "lights that turn on out of the blue without notice."

"Bad news. They didn't let me talk to Dumbledore. What if we left this to do until after the full moon?"

"And lose Wormtail? No way. We've got to catch him tomorrow, Moony."

"Padfoot, it may be a snare."

"Send an owl to Dumbledore saying ‘we're gonna get in', well now."

"Warn Sheeba, then."

"No. She's never needed warning."

"Sirius, you're doing exactly what you need to lose a woman..." said Lupin, and Sirius jumped out of the bed.

"If I warn her, she'll find a way to prevent me from entering that damned cave. The more days I spend out of there, the more days I lose from my life... you don't know that, Moony. You aren't a ‘dangerous criminal' who has to walk around hidden and seeing Dementors everywhere. Either I get in there and catch Wormtail or else I die clearing my name. And this is what I'm going to do, with or without you and Dumbledore."

"Okay, Padfoot, I'll go there with you tomorrow. But you'll promise me you're going to warn Sheeba now about what you're going to do."

"You don't need to say it, Remus, I already know," Sheeba had just Apparated just behind him.

"I told you she doesn't need notification," said Sirius grimly, turning his back to Sheeba, who did not even notice.

"Remus, Sirius, I've been at Hogwarts the whole day; things aren't at all good there. More than half the students are under a Confusion Spell. I've just told this to Dumbledore and he gave me an idea about what might be happening."

"What?" Sirius was avoiding to look at her.

"Somebody may be trying to do a forbidden spell there. I've made a little survey: every student who had a haircut there is under a Confusion Spell. Dumbledore will reinforce the security and also asked for reinforcements from the Ministry's Police."

"Where has Dumbledore been the whole day?" asked an irritated Sirius, without looking at her.

"He was solving an important matter. Something he's been trying for a good deal of time and hadn't succeeded in doing yet..."

"And what are you going to do?"

"I'll be at Hogwarts with the Police. Mad-Eye Moody's going to arrive tomorrow and then things will get calmer. We'll make a conspiracy against forbidden spells and after it's done we believe that every Confusion Spell made at Hogwarts will disappear. The situation is so complicated that Sybil Trelawney was taken to St. Mungo's Hospital last night."

"What happened to her?" asked Lupin.

"Actually, I think she had a ‘Blow of the Norns' and didn't withstand it. Although I don't believe a word of anything she might predict, nobody had ever seen Sybil Trelawney as mad as she was yesterday before. The students don't know this yet. She's been taken to the hospital in the middle of a delirium in the daybreak. It's the fault in being a charlatan: eventually they feel the weight of their responsibility. Now I need to go back to Hogsmeade."

"And won't you kiss me goodbye?"

"No, Sirius. You started with this, therefore you'll end this also," said Sheeba before Disapparating.

"Don't say a word, Moony," Sirius added, ill-humored.

Miles away, at Hogwarts, Hermione had just watched this dialogue.

**

The next day, Sirius and Lupin Disapparated into a forsaken tube.

"Now," said Sirius, "we just need to follow the smell of rat," he turned quickly into a huge dog, sniffing, looking for Wormtail's sour smell, which he could recognize from miles away. Sirius could feel his smell, and knew he was somewhere nearby, but he was very good in terms of hiding.

They walked more than two miles and Sirius could still feel Peter Pettigrew's smell. There was a cave-in in the middle of a tube, however they did not have any difficulty in recognizing it was a barrier.

Sirius, in his canine form, jumped through it. Lupin followed him, and just after the barrier, they had the first clue: there was a lateral yanked door into which there was more stairs that headed to a deeper somewhere.

This door was under a Beheading Spell that Lupin took some hours trying to decipher. When he finally managed to do it, he looked at his watch: midday.

"Sirius, I'm leaving this door with a Disarm Spell. If we reach Wormtail, I don't want the Ministry's Police or the Aurors to have difficulties to get in here. We've got to be quick; it's a race against time."

At that moment, at Hogwarts, Dumbledore was telling the students very seriously that they were not going to have classes that afternoon due to the forbidden spell cleaning that was going to take place. He also forewarned that anybody who did not want to have a spoiled spell would have half an hour to register it. Hermione reminded Harry that he would have to communicate about the robe his godmother gave him, since it was not registered yet, and so would she need to tell the staff about the jewel Sheeba gave her. At the front of the table where Professor McGonagall was registering the spells, a row of students started to take shape.

Mad-Eye Moody was going to guide the work. Next to the main table, Sheeba held something anxiously in her pocket. It was an object she had taken from Sirius the day before; a button. She was holding it tightly and muttering, &quin London, Lupin and Sirius (who had turned into a man again) were going down a flight of stairs that seemed to plunge into darkness. They passed through many trap hexes that they avoided by the use of Stunning and Ejection Spells.

At Hogwarts, Mad-Eye Moody was starting the ritual, bawling rather antique words and holding a wand in each hand. At his front, there was a spluttering cauldron that cast violet smoke in the air. Moody dove the wands into the cauldron and the smoke was divided into rosy and bluish spectrums. Each one of them turned into a huge horse that looked like a ghost and the couple galloped in the air to opposite directions. As they did it, the sound of many spells exploding and snapping and disarming was heard... love charms from fifth year girls, joke curses like Fred and George's, naughtiness, etc.

At Hagrid's cabin, a teapot, into which he was keeping something he had made to give to Madam Olympe Maxime (he was officially forbidden from doing magic) exploded; a quill bewitched with cheats for the Transfiguration Test exploded in Draco Malfoy's bag.

When one of the horses disappeared heading to the second floor, an immense explosion agitated Hogwarts and everything was just panic. Snape ran towards where the sound was heard as a flock of house-elves entered the Great Hall yelling and saying that the kitchens were getting flooded. Sheeba ran towards the kitchens just in time to see the ceiling crumbling down and, inside it, the biggest Confusion Ice – formed by a multicolored ball of yarn which was actually many people's hairs entangled - she had ever seen was melting. When it finally turned into a liquid, she left the kitchens.

Sheeba returned quickly to the Great Hall to touch Harry. When she touched him, nothing happened. The ritual was being finished and he was still under the Confusion Spell. She met Dumbledore's apprehensive eyes and said, "His Spell isn't here. Somebody stole it."

Then, she noticed that Snape had disappeared from the staff table.

At this moment, Sirius and Lupin bumped into a door that headed to two corridors, one to the left, the other to its right. They decided to go in opposite directions; Sirius went to the left and Lupin to the right. As Sirius rushed into the corridor, he noticed that it changed harshly its direction, as if it was a maze ("I hate mazes," he thought). He bumped into a yellow door the very moment he walked around the next curve. He opened it carefully, without going in. He looked into it and ducked just in time to avoid a fireball that some kind of pixie had just spat at him. He closed the door quickly and decided to go forward. He walked a little bit more and saw a second door, this time it was red. He smelled what might be behind it, opened it even more carefully and saw a big troll. Then, he conjured strong ropes and bound the creature, just to verify that this room did not have another exit but the door that he had used to get in. He left the room and walked in the corridor again. When he saw an orange door, something popped into his mind and he ran far away from it and back all the distance he had already passed through. At Hogwarts, Sheeba repeated, "quick, Sirius, quick". At the end of the other corridor, Remus Lupin had just seen a green door.

Chapter 11 – Snape disappears

Sheeba asked Dumbledore where Snape had gone and the answer was that Snape had gone to the second floor to extinguish the spell. Sheeba ran and took note that the spell had been extinguished, but Snape had disappeared. Harry, who had been following her, ran as fast as he could towards the Gryffindor Tower, passing before the Fat Lady quickly and going upstairs to his room. He opened his trunk breathlessly and took off from it the Marauder's Map and activated it quickly. He looked for Severus Snape in the map and found him just a second before the teacher vanished. Snape had left Hogwarts by the passageway near the Whomping Willow.

Harry went downstairs quickly, holding the map, and ran directly at Sheeba, whom he explained to what he had seen just in an awkward way. Somebody laid a hand on his shoulder and he turned around to face Albus Dumbledore. "Harry, come with me to my office. Sheeba, try to find Snape, will you?"

Deja vú. As Harry sat on a chair at Dumbledore's office, he already knew what was going to be said. He had seen part of this scene two days before, on Sheeba's Pensieve.

"You already know you're not allowed to leave Hogwarts for anything in the world, don't you? On no account do I want you trying to play the hero, Harry. I'm already risking Sirius and Remus's lives, since they're going after Pettigrew at great personal risk, and I don't want you thinking of ways to get out of this school and going to find what's happening. Last year, you almost got killed. Now that Voldemort's back, you're only protected under my vigilance. Understood?"

"I know it, Headmaster. Two days ago, at Sheeba's home, she showed me exactly this scene in her Pensieve."

"I understand, but I want to make it clear for you, Harry, that you need to stay safe here, away from trouble. Okay?"

"Okay."

At this moment, somebody knocked the door and Dumbledore asked this person to step in. Mad-Eye Moody's deformed face showed up in the gap between the door and the wall and greeted the two of them. Moody told them a student had disappeared. Dumbledore asked who it was and the answer made Harry's heart beat twice as fast as usual, "Cho Chang."

**

Sheeba was running through the passageway near the Whomping Willow holding Sirius's button tightly with her a hand, and holding a wand, whose tip was illuminating her way, with the other She kept repeating mentally, "Please, Sirius, stop him."

**

Sirius was running in his canine form across the places where Lupin had been. He passed past a blue door with the faintest will to check what was there behind it, and then he saw a yellow door, and ran even faster, his feet getting heavier and heavier against the floor. He saw Lupin in the end of the corridor, just in front of the green door, holding the handle. Sirius barked out loud, astonishing his friend. Then, he jumped onto Lupin, changing into his human form before he knocked Lupin down.

"Could you please tell me why you attacked me, Sirius?"

"Don't get in there. It's a trap for you."

"Who told you that?"

"Sheeba did, yesterday. She told me that if you go into this room, you'll die. Do you want to confer she was right?"

"I honestly don't have any reasons to doubt a word from her, but I don't think it's cautious for you to enter this room alone."

"And what do you expect me to do?"

"Try to Disapparate and find Sheeba and Dumbledore."

"I guess it's impossible to Disapparate here. This is a real fortress, it wouldn't be vulnerable to something so simple."

"Even though this place was plotted by Wormtail, I've got to admit he knows how to make a wizard lose time."

"I'll get in, you get away. Find Sheeba."

**

At Hogwarts, surrounded by Ron and Hermione, Harry felt butterflies in his stomach. If somebody wanted to make him sad, this person had succeeded. They could have gotten him, but why Cho? She was not even in love with him, Harry knew that, she still loved Cedric Diggory, even though it had been almost a year since the object of her affection had died. Harry had noticed that the last time he saw her. If she gets killed or hurt because of me, Harry thought, I'll be the one who's getting mad and going to St. Mungo's.

"Do you think Snape dragged Cho Chang with him?" asked Ron while he looked apprehensively at Harry.

"He left the castle alone, I saw it on the Map."

"Besides," added Hermione, "Snape's on our side."

"Hermione, do you remember Sheeba saying Snape had deceived her?"

"Ron, that was when she thought he had cast a Confusion Spell on himself."

"And what if he did, what if he's taken away Harry's Confusion Ice?"

"Ron, Hermione, we've got to do something. I think the only way out would be following Snape. He might have seen who's taken Cho and went behind this person, so when I looked at the Map, the person who kidnapped Cho was already outside the grounds."

"Harry," Ron started, "Do you remember Sheeba telling us she's seen something about Snape?"

"Oh, yes! She told us he was going to London!" said Hermione cheerfully.

"Great. We still don't know how to Disapparate and we're miles away from London, which means we would have to start from scratch," said an ill-humored Harry. Hermione was looking at the Eye of the Tiger and saw that at that very moment, Lupin was Apparating just in front of Sheeba.

"There's a way," she said, "I have a plan."

**

Sirius opened the door and stared. The room was completely dark. Suddenly, the lights were switched on and this made him go momentarily blind (Electric light?, he thought). As soon as he opened his eyes, he heard a blast and saw a man pointing a gun at him, shooting. He felt something very soft hit his shoulder and fall down, and just then he remembered what Sheeba said about the garment she had lent him. That was a Muggle bullet. And the man kept shooting. Sirius crouched behind a desk and noticed that this was a non-magical room. Actually, it had all the characteristics of a Muggle room: there was even a telephone on the desk. Sirius looked at one of the bullets the man had shot at him and found out why Lupin could not enter this room: those were silver bullets. He stopped a moment to think about what he was going to do and looked at the Muggle by the gap in the desk. The man was obviously under a strong Imperius Curse. So, the wizard who cast this spell could not be so far... he could not do anything that might put this Muggle's life in danger., he did not want to have to be blamed by the Ministry for a death, and whoever made him get to that place knew it. He heard a voice, out of the blue, talk to the Muggle, "His head, you nitwit, aim at his head and don't miss the target!"

Sirius knew that voice. It belonged to Wormtail. He did not know if what he was going to do would work, but anyway, he remembered what Sheeba had told him, that he would get out of that place alive.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted and the gun the Muggle guy was holding flied away and stopped at Sirius's hand.

He noticed the man was wearing policeman uniform and heard what Wormtail said next, "Moron! You'll pay for it! Crucio!" the policeman started yelling in pain and Sirius thought Wormtail was hidden under an Invisibility Cloak. Suddenly, he notice what could help him: the ceiling was full of sprinklers. Without wasting anymore minutes, Sirius turned the gun into a Filisbuster Fire and threw it at the ceiling. It exploded and made the Sprinklers start spouting water everywhere, and he saw a place in the middle of the air where the water was dripping.

"Impedimenta!" Sirius pointed at the shadow, but it opened a door behind itself and apparently escaped by a corridor. Before following it, Sirius made sure the Muggle policeman was going to be all right. There was water everywhere and Sirius improvised a spell to stop the sprinklers. It was almost nonsense there being there... the door at the subterranean passage may have been a doorway that headed to another room, in some Muggle building. He left by the same door as Wormtail and noticed he was stepping out of the orange door at the maze. Doubtlessly, it was a Muggle building and now he was leaving again by another doorway. Everything's just here to confuse people, he thought. Minus two doors. One of them lay ahead. He decided to enter the pixie's room. He opened the door carefully and shouted, pointing at the room, "Impedimenta!"

There was not anymore pixies in the room. Sirius's spell hit a mirror and almost hit him back. The room was full of mirrors, "It must be here," he thought.

To be continued...