Secrets

Chapter 13

McGonagall and Black were already there when Snape and Iris arrived at the School´s southern perimeter. They could see McGonagall´s forest green and Black´s dark grey robes in the distance, just outside the grounds, and knew they would have to dismount, bypass the wards, cross the fly-by barrier on foot and then remount, to reach them. They paused, hovering restlessly on their brooms less than a yard from the barrier and the wardings, scanning the woodlands beyond closely for any sign of Dementors.

`There!´ Iris pointed out suddenly, far to her right.

`I see them.´

Snape turned away quickly again, looking to his left. His lips moved silently, as if he was counting. `I´m counting six. Three from the right, three from the left. There´s probably more.´

Iris nodded and turned to look behind her.

`Reinforcements are coming,´ she said. Snape glanced back and noted the two distant dots flying towards them at great speed. From the unmistakeable racing position of the rider in front he recognised Madame Hooch, and the rather dignified looking blur of burgundy coming up behind her had to be Sinistra.

`This is wrong,´ he murmured quietly to himself.

Iris´s head snapped round to look at him.

`What do you mean?´

He turned to scan the horizon ahead again, eyes narrowed curiously, and Iris could almost see the well-oiled wheels in his brain spinning fiercely in thought. He didn´t answer immediately.

`What do you mean?´ Iris prompted urgently, again.

`I told him about the Dementor alarm,´ said Snape quietly, but it seemed as if he was thinking out loud rather than talking to Iris. `This is stupid... And he´s not stupid!´

`What are you talking about?!!´ Iris cried desperately. Madame Hooch and Sinistra had already overtaken them and were even then crossing the fly-by barrier on foot.

`Don´t you see?´ he turned to look at her for the first time. `I told him about the alarm. He knows we would be aware of Dementors approaching before they even came anywhere near the school. You´d expect that if he were going to try something like this, he would at least attempt to put on a slightly larger show of force. Wouldn´t you? I mean, six Dementors?´-

`Eight,´ Iris interrupted him, pointing straight ahead. Snape didn´t even turn.

`We managed six own on our own. He knows about that too. He also knows exactly how much staff this school has, and what they can all do.´

`There may be more of them in the Northern perimeter,´ Iris suggested, the lines along which Snape was thinking now slowly becoming apparent to her.

`Maybe...´ said Snape distractedly. `But I doubt it... I am going over there,´ he concluded suddenly, turning his broom around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees even as he spoke.

`No! Wait!´ Iris cried and grabbed his arm, just barely managing to hold him back before he had time to speed off.

`What about here? What if more of them show up? We have to help!´

`Iris, there´s no time for this,´ said Snape shortly. `I need to check the northern perimeter. If there´s no more than another handful of Dementors there, then something else is going on. If I´m not back here in ten minutes, then tell everyone that this is just a distraction and get them to double back. The Dementors can´t cross the wardings without help, anyway.´

`But how will we find you?´ she tried to ask, knowing that he was right, but he was already speeding away. `Damn!´ she cursed loudly and she turned her broom violently downwards in a spectacular nosedive towards the ground and the wardings she was obliged to cross on foot.

* * *

Phaedra, with the Prime Minister in tow and Aidan following suit a few yards behind them, skidded to a stop, as she crossed the threshold of the underground parking of the House of Commons, and physically yanked the PM back behind the open door with her as she saw what was waiting for them on the other side. Aidan flung himself flat against the nearest wall in reaction, partially to Phaedra´s movements, and partially to the curse he heard being shouted from the other side of the door. Then came the blast, followed instantly by the unmistakeable sound of a car exploding. The shock wave came through the door a second later, carrying with it flaming, razor-sharp debris that ricocheted off the opposite wall and the ceiling and showered down inside the corridor like acid rain. Phaedra and the Prime Minister were knocked backwards off their feet and Aidan stumbled and fell to one knee, his hand still desperately trying to keep its grasp on the wall that shuddered violently and burned to the touch. As he pulled himself to his feet again, he looked up, anxiously, in Phaedra´s direction, hardly noticing the warm, sticky trickle of something seeping down the side of his neck. She had just scrambled to her knees and was about to turn to check on the Prime Minister when Aidan saw her eyes widen and she twisted, suddenly, away from her charge, wand extended and pointing straight at him. A slim streak of blood stained the edge of her cheek where a flying piece of debris had caught her.

`Aidan, duck!´ he heard her voice scream in his head. He didn´t have time to think about it; he didn´t even have time to duck; in fact, he hardly had time to throw himself against the wall once again before a blinding flash of light sped past him, mere inches away from his face, and exploded, with a scream, somewhere behind him. A black robed figure crumpled to the ground, buried under a flaming cocoon.

Aidan breathed again.

`Are you ok?´ Phaedra called to him.

`Yes. You? You´re bleeding,´ he said as he moved towards her.

`So are you,´ she replied, without even looking up. She was helping a shell-shocked looking Prime Minister to his feet. Aidan´s hand went instinctively to his neck, only now realising what the warm trickle was. His fingers came away red.

`It´s nothing,´ he said, rolling the small, red shard of glass he had just plucked from his neck between his thumb and forefinger and then tossing it aside.

`Good. We still need to get him into a car and out of here,´ Phaedra replied, her voice calm and controlled.

Aidan peaked carefully out into the garage. There were flames out there, scorched, twisted metal, bodies -hardly recognisable now -and Death Eaters; many of them; toying with a few surviving muggles. Aidan felt his blood start boiling. Once Phaedra and the Prime Minister were safely out of there he considered allowing himself the satisfaction of taking out as many of these bastards as he could before one of them got him. He was reasonably certain it was a worthwhile trade-off.

`What´s the verdict?´ Phaedra´s voice interrupted his deliberation, probably just in time.

`Bleak,´ he replied shortly.

She too, carefully, risked a glance outside.

`There´s a couple of cars left,´ she suggested desperately.

`Only we can´t get to them without being seen. And even if we do, there´s no chance you´ll be able to drive out of here without someone noticing. We´ll have to arrange a distraction.´

`What sort of distraction?´ she asked, looking at him suspiciously, eyes narrowed dangerously. She didn´t like the sound of this and she thought she knew where it was going.

`I could´-

`-No!´ she interrupted him before he had even had the chance to finish his thought. `They´re going to kill you in two seconds flat, and it´ll be for nothing, because in that amount of time, I won´t even have had the chance to turn the engine on.´

`I didn´t even say what´-

`-I said no!´

`Fine. How about you Apparate to the car and when you´re there, I show up, dragging this guy with me, supposedly for a bit of extra-curricular fun, and as soon as we´re anywhere near the car, he makes a run for it?´

`Won´t work.´

`Why not?´

Instead of an answer, Phaedra turned to look meaningfully at the PM. Aidan followed her gaze and immediately saw her point. The man looked so shocked and terrified as to make any attempt at anything involving any personal initiative whatsoever, totally inconceivable. It was too risky.

`Right,´ Aidan breathed and Phaedra could hear desperate resolve starting to creep into his voice.

`There has to be another way! We can´t just fight our way back upstairs. We were lucky to make it out in one piece the first time,´ she said vehemently.

`There is. And it is what we´re going to do; end of discussion. It is a direct order from the ranking officer on site. You understand? I´m pulling rank,´ Aidan said with sudden grim determination. `I´m going to take the both of you in there, and when we get near the cars, both of you make a run for it. I´ll cover you. I should be able to give you enough time to make it out of here, at least. Are we clear?´

Phaedra just stared at him speechlessly for a moment.

`You´re pulling rank on me?´ she asked in disbelief. `And that´s your plan? Are you out of your mind? Or, more to the point, are you suicidal?´

`Discussion´s over!´ Aidan growled. `Get ready. We´re going out there right now, and I really will force you to if I have to. It will make it all even more realistic, too.´

`Aidan, you don´t stand a chance against so many of them! This is insane!´ Phaedra tried to argue, but he pointedly ignored her as he grabbed the Prime Minister´s arm and dragged him to the door.

`It´s probably a good idea if you try to look like you´re under the Imperius curse. It will put them off their guard -for a while at least,´ Aidan instructed calmly, avoiding her eyes as he spoke. The Prime Minister was looking even more confused and terrified with every minute that went by -and Aidan couldn´t blame him. Now the only two people in the building that seemed to be on his side, were arguing between themselves about something he couldn´t possibly hope to understand. The only thing that he seemed clear on was that the outlook for some, or all of them, was bleak. Aidan shook him gently by the shoulders, trying to get his attention. The man´s eyes met his own for the first time.

`We are going in there,´ Aidan said quietly, slowly, holding the man´s eyes locked to his own the entire time. `When Phaedra here says "go" -not before -you run. Do you understand? You run like you´ve never before, to the nearest intact vehicle and thrown yourself in. Doesn´t matter which door, or even window you use. Just make it quick. Your life -and hers, depends on it. Do you understand?´

The Prime Minister stared at him blankly for a moment.

`Do you understand?´ Aidan repeated. This time he got a slow, hesitant nod in reply. `Good. Now, here we go. Are you coming?´ he turned briefly to Phaedra. He saw her lips tighten for a moment and her jaw stiffen, as if she was making a great effort to stop herself from saying something. Her eyes blazed, briefly, in anger -or was it determination? Then she forced her muscles to relax. Her face became impassive and she closed her eyes for a moment as she composed herself.

`I´m ready,´ she said flatly, and opened her eyes again. They seemed glazed, unblinking and empty, as she stared expressionlessly straight ahead. Aidan examined her face and her impression of an Imperius curse victim and as he did so, his gaze softened. There was a fleeting impression of sadness in his smile she wasn´t even certain she saw, before he turned away from her. It might even have been regret, or just her imagination.

`Here goes nothing,´ said Aidan softly, as he pushed the Prime Minister ahead of him, through the door. He couldn´t hear Phaedra´s silent footsteps behind him, but he knew she was there. He could feel her presence in the prickle on the nape of his neck and in the deliberate, heavy silence in his mind.

`Don´t get killed,´ he heard her whisper in his head, and then there was silence again.

He made no reply; he only continued walking; the almost imperceptible hesitation in his stride being the only indication that he had heard her.

* * *

Snape´s black figure streaked, like a smudge of ink against the pure blue of the spring sky, over the school´s grounds. He knew what he was going to find at the northern perimeter, even before he got there. He only had to do this to satisfy his own meticulous sense of caution. There were only going to be another handful of Dementors there, just like there were back on the southern border, keeping practically all of the school´s manpower dispersed and occupied. Divide and conquer. It was a simple as that.

It didn´t take him long to get there and he was quickly rewarded, yet again, with the unwelcome sense of satisfaction at being always right. Those members of staff that were not currently occupied at the northern perimeter he had seen, as he flew over, making their way anxiously southwards on their brooms. He didn´t even pause, but pulled his broom round in a steep, ninety-degree turn and headed west. Someone had to do the obvious and check the full perimeter. As he streaked away once more, his mind taunted him with images of Death Eaters, unseen and unhindered by anyone but the complexity of the wardings, trying to break into Hogwarts at that very minute. And they could have been anywhere; absolutely anywhere along the line of an extremely long perimeter, and he was the only one out there looking for them. Something told him that no one in their right mind would try the front gate, so he headed in the opposite direction.

He flew round the Dark Forest first, skimming low over the carpet of tree tops, slowing down just enough for him to be able to discern any black-robed figures that may have been even then making their way through the trees. The dense forest canopy slowed his progress down considerably, and when he had finally cleared the last tree he put in another mad burst of speed. Strangely, the farther he went without even a suspicion of black robes in sight, the more apprehensive he became. When he reached the front gate, only to find that that too was entirely free of Death Eaters, he almost turned back towards the southern perimeter, convinced, suddenly, that he had fallen for a double bluff and that, at that very moment, there were hoards of Dementors attacking from the south.

With an immense show of willpower, he forced himself to stop -hovering agitatedly over the school´s front gate -and to think. He had to calm down and think. He knew -even though he had to convince himself of that fact all over again -that Iris, McGonagall, Hooch and even Sinistra and the bastard Black, knew how to take care of themselves. What was vital now, was that he figured out what was really going on. A score of Dementors -several miles apart -did not constitute a threat to this school, by any stretch of the imagination. Dumbledore could send them running on his own, if he wanted to, just by telling them, sternly, that they were very naughty boys and they should go home now, before he got angry. So, why were they there?

* * *

Hermione, staring in undisguised horror at Ron, didn´t even dare unclasp her hands from her mouth, as if that simple movement would somehow make things worse than they already were.

`Ron!´ she moaned, between her fingers.

`It can´t be!´ Ron whispered madly. `It just can´t! How did they get in? It´s just not possible. You said it was not possible!´

`I know,´ she whispered back, fingers still clenched tightly round her mouth, eyes wide and round like saucers. `But they´re here. They got in. How did they get in?!´

`I don´t know. But it´s not important now. What´s important is what they´re doing in Snape´s office and what are we going to do about it?´ Ron hissed at her urgently.

`What can we do?!´ Hermione blurted out loudly, for the first time. `Everyone´s outside trying to fend off a Dementor attack. If there´s anyone left inside, I wouldn´t even know where to start looking for them; and I definitely don´t know the password to Dumbledore´s office.´

`What if they´re setting up a bomb in there, or something?´ Ron exclaimed desperately. `We have to do something!´

`I know, but what, Ron? What can we do? We don´t even have Harry´s invisibility cloak. We can´t just saunter out of here, in the hope that we´ll run into someone useful on the way! There´s no one here! It´s the perfect plan! Get everyone running around after Dementors while you get three people to scuttle in. Just three people. Who´ll notice that when there´s hoards of Dementors outside?´

`That´s it!´ Ron breathed suddenly. `Scuttle in. That´s it! They came in through the fourth secret tunnel. Remember? Wormtail knows all about that tunnel. That´s how they got in!´

Hermione stared at him for a moment, while her mind processed the information.

`But surely Dumbledore knows about that too. There would have been wardings in place. Surely...´

`They bypassed the wardings. It´s possible,´ Ron waved her objections aside. `The fact remains, they´re here. Going through the tunnel would give them ample time to work on dispelling the wards, and the opportunity to walk in without getting spotted. It wouldn´t have been so easy if they had had to walk up from the main gate!´

Hermione continued staring at him doubtfully.

`Hermione!´ Ron cried, grabbing her shoulders in despair. `Wormtail is in Snape´s office right now. That other guy, the one with the gruff voice, that´s McNair, I´m sure of it. I don´t know who the woman is, and it doesn´t make any difference! They´re in here, right now, doing something I don´t even want to know about. What does it matter how they got in?! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!´

Hermione remained silent, but now panic was starting to creep in behind her eyes. She pulled away from Ron, cringing into a tight ball, arms wrapped around her knees, in the corner of the closet. After a moment, she lowered her head and, biting her lip viciously, started rocking back and forth, in frantic thought.

`Hermione?´ Ron inquired worriedly.

`Shut up and listen to the damn Earspy Ron. I´m thinking!´ she said.

Ron didn´t argue. He shot her one more worried glance and then picked up the Earspy again.

`Why Snape´s office?´ Hermione asked suddenly.

`What?´

`I said, why Snape´s office?´ Hermione repeated. `Why not somewhere else? There´s plenty of secluded places around Hogwarts.´

Ron shrugged.

`I don´t know. Maybe they thought that, at least there, if someone walked in on them, it would be Snape. Maybe they´re counting on him covering for them. That would make sense. Maybe they weren´t sure they would get the job done before everyone came back.´

`Maybe. So it can´t be a bomb then.´

`Why not?´

`Ron! Use your head? Would you want to finish setting up a bomb after everyone is back indoors and you don´t know when you´ll get the chance to clear out? And, if you were Snape, would you agree to have a bomb sitting around in your office? Especially if you didn´t know when it was going to go off? He´s not stupid! I don´t think they´d treat him as if he were.´

`Ok. So maybe it´s not a bomb then. What is it?´

`Don´t know,´ said Hermione and went back to rocking back and forth and chewing at her lip. `Something that only needs to be set up now, somewhere where they´re sure it won´t be disturbed, or discovered -hence Snape´s office -to be used at a later date.´

`Ok. That sounds logical. But we still don´t know what it might be, or how this knowledge makes any difference to us.´

`It makes a difference, Ron, because if it´s of no immediate danger, then we don´t have to go running out of here like headless chickens, trying to find someone to tell. As long as we know what is going on -and it´s not something that is about to blow up -then we can tell someone when they get back.´

`Isn´t that a bit risky? Like... very risky?´

`Yes. So is going out there right now. What if we run into Wormtail and McNair as they´re leaving? Then no one will know anything about this, because we´ll both be dead. Remember Cedric? He´s dead, because he ran into these people by accident. Don´t forget, once they leave Snape´s office, we´ve lost them. Can´t track them. It´s over. We can´t know where they´re heading. Want to risk that? Or would you rather we just went straight up to Snape´s office and tried to take all three of them out?´

Ron didn´t have a reply to that. Someone else, however, did.

`I assure you, that wouldn´t be wise.´

Ron and Hermione spun round so quickly they fell back against the wall with the momentum of their movement. The silence of the hidden door, as it glided open and shut, which was something they had been thankful for thus far, had just betrayed them. They hadn´t heard it slide open, silently, behind them as they talked. The tall, dark figure obscuring the doorway grinned menacingly, a set of gleaming, white teeth all they could discern of his features. The man raised his left hand and showed them something tiny, about the size of a pea, rolling it around between his thumb and forefinger.

`How long has this been sitting in Snape´s office then?´ he asked. `Weeks? Months? Is it possible he knows about it and has just been toying with you, or has he simply not noticed it, because if that´s the case then we really must re-evaluate his presumed competence. How much have you two heard? And, more importantly, whom have you told?´ McNair finished by leaning forward in mock congeniality.

Ron and Hermione tried to recede further into the wall and away from him, but there was nowhere to go. The wall remained as firm and unyielding as ever.

`There is, of course, a third option. He could have put you up to this himself, but he wouldn´t do that; he wouldn´t sign his and your death sentence himself, now, would he?´ McNair paused, to allow his last words to sink in, before he continued. `How about we all go and find out, hey? I think we all want to know, don´t we?´

He extended his wand in their direction, with a mirthless smile.

* * *

`Ah! More game!´ a man in black robes exclaimed enthusiastically on seeing Aidan approaching with his two trophies in tow. `Just in time! And we were running out of toys! Where did you find these two, then?´ The rest of the Death Eaters interrupted their sport to turn and see what the excitement was about. Aidan continued walking straight at them.

`Outside, in the hallway. Probably trying to make it to a car,´ Aidan replied flatly. `You really should have had someone covering that route. They could have escaped.´

The man waved Aidan´s words aside.

`Nah! Not a chance! We´d have spotted them the moment they stepped foot through that door.´

`You didn´t spot me until I was half way across the garage, and I was heading straight for you,´ Aidan pointed out, his tone one of cold disapproval. `This really is very sloppy work, on your part. You should count yourselves fortunate that Lord Voldemort is not here right now. He would not have been impressed.´

Aidan´s final comment had the desired, disconcerting effect on the Death Eater that Voldemort´s name always did on every member of his circle. The man checked himself, but knew that, backing down completely, would make him look weak.

`I don´t see who put you in charge? As far as we´re aware, Marcus Ireson´s running this operation,´ the man retorted after taking a moment to compose himself.

`Precisely. And, do you think he´d be happy with the way you´ve been running things here? Let´s call him, shall we, and see what he has to say about this?´

`That´s ridiculous! We can´t find him now! Not in the midst of this mayhem!´ a woman in black interjected.

Aidan turned to glare at her.

`Then pull yourselves together, and we won´t have to mention this incident ever again. I don´t believe Marcus has much of a tolerance for stupidity. Now, either kill these poor sods and get it over with, or take them outside and continue with your sport somewhere where other muggles can see you. That is the point of this entire exercise, is it not?´

`Well...´ the man shuffled his feet and looked around at his colleagues, `yes.´

`So, what the hell are you still doing here?´

`What about them?´ the woman piped up indignantly, indicating Phaedra and the PM with her wand. The PM flinched.

`What about them?´ Aidan asked flatly, a note of warning in his voice.

`Where are you taking them?´

`It´s none of your business. I have my orders just like you have yours.´

`You just said you found them outside.´

`Yes?´

`You have orders on what to do with people you just found wandering around?´

Aidan walked slowly up to her until his face was mere inches away from hers. He held her eyes in his own until she shifted and lowered her gaze. All eyes were on the two of them now, Death Eater and muggle alike; black robed figures pulled back in a wide semi-circle around them. In some respects, this was even more exciting than toying with muggles; it was not something one saw everyday.

`So, what are you saying?´ Aidan asked softly, quietly, the menace in his voice more palpable than if he had shouted. `Are you saying I´m lying? Would you like to sort this out right now, or would you like to take your concerns to Marcus? Or, if you prefer, I´m sure an audience with Lord Voldemort can be arranged.´ As if to make his point more tangible, a small, bright blue finger of energy sprouted from the tip of his wand, sizzling and squirming, clinging precariously onto the reddish-brown cypress wood with spindly legs of lightning, eagerly expecting to be set free.

The muggle cowering at the woman´s feet whimpered and made a feeble attempt to crawl outside the range of what he felt sure was an explosion about to happen. No one paid him any mind, and no one noticed a small shape slink silently from the shadows of the far wall, to the cover behind the nearest intact vehicle. Only Phaedra felt her heart skip a beat, as the flicker of movement grazed the edges of her peripheral vision. Thankful that she was the only one who could hear the frenzied beating of her heart, she took a fraction of a step back; then, a few seconds later, another one. At this rate she knew she wouldn´t even reach the car by the end of the year, but she wanted to be as close to it as possible when the time came to make a dash for it; and that time looked as if it were rapidly approaching. Everyone seemed thoroughly engrossed in Aidan´s little attention-seeking performance and, if she was lucky, and not hallucinating from the stress, it looked like help had just arrived. She just hoped Aidan could keep everyone´s undivided attention, as efficaciously as he had done until now, for a few more seconds. She risked a sideways glance towards the car.

The briefest impression of ginger fur caught the corner of her eye in the driver´s seat. She almost sighed in a combination of relief and resignation but checked herself, just in time. This was it. She couldn´t hope for a better moment to attempt an escape, nor could she risk waiting for one.

`Well?´ Aidan asked the woman after a moment´s pause. `What will it be?´

Phaedra glanced in the Prime Minister´s direction, calculating the precise distance she would have to cover in her dive towards him. She bent her knees, slightly, rolling onto the balls of her feet as she began her spring forward.

`What the hell is going on here?!´ a deep, thick, droning voice edged with irritability sounded loudly all of a sudden. Phaedra had already began her leap in the PM´s direction when the sound, and its accompanying implications, registered in her mind. She had the briefest fraction of a second to decide whether she could stop what she had just started doing without ruining the plan and getting herself, the Prime Minister of Britain and Aidan killed, or whether going ahead with it was the best option now.

She decided, and her feet left the ground as everyone in the room was turning, instinctively, in the direction of the voice. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise after all, she thought as she landed, arms already around the Prime Minister´s shoulders, the momentum of her dive dragging him with her in the car´s direction. No amount of confusion would have been too much, at this point, and she was thankful for any extra bit of bedlam that came her way; the newcomer had just provided her with more of what she needed: diversion.

`GO!´ she screamed and shoved the PM, fiercely, forward, one part of her brain registering the sound of the car´s engine coming to life, and the passenger seat door being flung open by someone who was definitely not a large, ginger Tom anymore, while another, completely different part, the part that always wished one had eyes in the back of one´s head was listening to the chaos erupting behind her, and trying to keep track of the events taking place in the couple of seconds before she could spin round and deal with them.

`Fuck! Get them!!´ Death Eater.	`What the...??!!!´ new, stupid sounding voice.
`Aveda-´ damned woman.	`Stupefy!´ Aidan.

-Thud.

PM in car.	`Get in the fucking car!´ Aidan, screaming, directly to brain.
Ignore him. Spin round.
Woman on floor.		`What the...??!!´ Death Eater number one -angry, confused.

Screeching tyres.

Wand pointing in car´s direction.

`We need her!!´ Aidan.

Diverse wands pointing in own direction.	Deflect hex from car.
`She´s a witch!!´ Death Eater number two.

Dodge fireball by mere inches.

`NO!´ Aidan.

Deflect second hex from car.				Wand pointing in Aidan´s direction.
`Expelliarmus!´ Aidan.		Death Eater number one flying through air.
Curse coming own way.			Dodge. Barely.
	`I said NO!!´ Aidan.

*Pop*

*Pop*

Phaedra suddenly found herself staring straight into Aidan´s sea-green eyes, his face mere inches away from hers. She gasped.

`I´m sorry. There´s no other way! Trust me!´ his voice spoke to her mind.

`Stupefy!´ he cried out loud and caught her in one arm as she fell.

`What the hell do you think you´re doing?!´ Crabbe roared, nearly beside himself with anger; most of which was due to the fact that he couldn´t understand what was going on. `I should kill you, right now, for this! You let him get away! And you attacked two of your own to do so! If you can explain yourself, do it quickly. You have ten seconds!´ He advanced on Aidan, wand extended, and stopped at point blank range, the tip of his wand hovering half an inch from Aidan´s chest. The only thing stopping him from realising his threat there and then, without waiting for any sort of explanation was a bleary memory from months ago: Ireson´s sneering, sarcastic voice. `All you need to know is that he´s ours and if you come across him, don´t kill him.´ Ireson was running this operation, after all. Killing Ireson´s pet dog without reason was not something Ireson would have been pleased about.

* * *

McNair led Ron and Hermione down to Snape´s office without incident, with the help of a little spell neither Ron or Hermione had heard before. He had only uttered the word `obfuscate´ and then had proceeded to explain to them, with his continued demeanour of mock congeniality, that this way, they could only be seen by someone explicitly looking for them, and, as they both knew, that wasn´t very likely to happen in the few minutes it would take them to reach the relative safety of Snape´s office. As McNair had predicted, they arrived there a few minutes later, safely and unseen. Not that they had met anyone along the way, but still. He pushed the door open carefully and ushered Ron and Hermione in, in front of him.

`Found them,´ he announced with a scowling, but triumphant sneer. `Guess who it was, Wormtail!´

Pettigrew turned round long enough to shoot Ron and Hermione a mildly surprised glance, which quickly turned into malice.

`What, just them two? Wasn´t the undisputed hero of the wizarding world with them?!´ he sneered.

`No. Shame that, isn´t it? Lord Voldemort would have been pleased with such an unexpected gift,´ McNair grumbled.

`Are you sure you didn´t miss him, somewhere?´ Pettigrew insisted, but he wasn´t looking at McNair or the children any more. He looked thoroughly engrossed with what he was doing. Not that Ron and Hermione could even begin to guess what that was. All they could see was that it involved a lot of tracing of intricate, shimmering symbols with his wand in the air, while a terrifying-looking, blonde woman in her thirties was murmuring a remarkably long incantation under her breath. No wonder they couldn´t understand what it was she was saying through the Earspy.

`Yes I´m certain, you idiot! They were hiding in a secret closet the size of a coffin! There´s not much of a chance of missing him in there!´

Pettigrew shrugged.

`Oh well, shame.´

`How much longer is that going to take, then? We´re running over-time here.´

`We´re almost done! If you stopped pestering us, we´d be finished by now!´

`So what are we doing with these two, then?´ McNair inquired casually.

`Have you found out what they know, and whom they´ve told?´ Pettigrew asked offhandedly.

`No. I guess we´d better interrogate them.´

`I reckon we should,´ Pettigrew agreed with the patience of a man who was forced, day in, day out, to make himself amiable to much stronger men, of much lower intelligence than his own. `Unfortunately, we don´t have the time to do that here. We´ll have to take them with us. Maybe Lord Voldemort will appreciate even this meagre, yet unforeseen gift...´ he added hopefully in the end. `Besides, we need to find out if Snape knew about the Earspy. They will make for a good test of his loyalties, and good leverage,´ he concluded with a malicious grin in McNair´s direction.

McNair grinned back and Ron and Hermione looked at each other in desperation.

With a final swish of his wand, and a last shimmering glyph hanging for a moment in the air, Pettigrew finished what he was doing.

`Done!´ he exclaimed smugly.

The woman´s quiet, droning incantation went on for a few seconds longer, and then she finally went silent. She turned around slowly, looked at the children for the first time, and then smiled coldly at Pettigrew and McNair

`Done,´ she confirmed.

`Ron, Hermione, meet Miss Turner. Be polite and say how do you do, now,´ Pettigrew said with a wide, unpleasant grin that was uncannily reminiscent of a large rodent. `We´re all going on a little trip together. Please don´t even think of trying to make a run for it. It won´t work. The only thing you might accomplish is getting killed before it´s strictly necessary. Besides, Ron, as a pure-blood, might still be spared, if he cooperates and with a little memory manipulation, although I wouldn´t count too heavily on it. I will do my best to intervene on his behalf with Lord Voldemort, because, after all, he was a good master to me for years.´ He shrugged. `Although I´m not sure how much weight my word carries.´

`Come on, Pettigrew! Cut the crap!´ McNair interrupted. `We´ve got to go!´

`True, true,´ he said, and turned his back on Ron and Hermione. He raised his wand and aimed in the general direction he had been aiming at earlier. `Aperi Porta!´ he ordered.

Where before there had been nothing but empty air, a shimmering began, which became stronger and stronger, until a turquoise, sparkling circle could be clearly seen, hanging, suspended in mid-air, like a gleaming lagoon tipped on its side. It was the size of a large set of double doors.

`This, children, is a portal,´ Pettigrew announced proudly. `And it will take us straight to our meeting place with Lord Voldemort No Apparition, or Portkeys necessary. Ingenious, is it not? Come on now, who´s going first?´

`I honestly hope you have a satisfactory explanation for all this,´ a sneering, quiet baritone coming from the door stopped everyone short. Snape was already inside the office and the door was closed behind him. No one had heard so much as the rustle of robes, let alone footsteps or the door opening and closing.

`How the hell...?!´ McNair began in astonishment.

`I don´t remember ordering a Portal,´ Snape continued as if he hadn´t heard him, and without so much as a pause. `Does it come with a gift card, or is there something else going on here that I should know about?´

Never had Ron and Hermione been so happy and relieved to hear Snape´s scathing sarcasm.

* * *

`She´s an Auror,´ Aidan said calmly, without so much as batting an eyelid. `One of many in this building right now.´

`I can see that for myself,´ Crabbe growled menacingly. `That´s not an explanation.´

Aidan allowed himself a barely disguised sigh of immeasurable patience, and rolled his eyes, slightly.

`I caught her -or thought I had, my mistake there -and I was planning to take her to Marcus for interrogation. I thought he would have been interested to find out how the Ministry knew about our little operation here today -since they so obviously did -and had had the time to prepare for it, by sending Aurors to baby-sit the muggles.´

Crabbe stared at him suspiciously, his brain still processing the incoming information.

`You think they knew this was going to happen today?´ he asked dubiously. `They could have just posted Aurors here constantly, for all we know.´

Aidan grinned, and then laughed out loud.

`You really think Fudge would have posted all these Aurors here, permanently, just on the off-chance that the muggle Parliament would be attacked, rather than have kept them for his own personal protection?´

Crabbe continued staring at him for another couple of moments, and then the corner of his mouth started to twitch, then his nostrils flared, and then he too began laughing loudly as the absurdity of the notion sank in. He laughed, and laughed, and then suddenly stopped.

`And how do we know that you weren´t the one that tipped the Ministry off?´ he asked coldly, the anger and danger in his voice almost tangible.

`Because, as Marcus can confirm, I didn´t know anything about this until about twenty minutes ago, when it all started,´ Aidan said without even blinking. `We can go and ask him, if you like. Now, can I Enervate her, because she´s getting a bit heavy? And I´ll make sure I´ve got her wand safely tucked away this time,´ he added. As if in confirmation of his words Phaedra´s wand flew into his hand, from where it had been laying on the floor, by her feet.

`Why don´t you just drop her, for Merlin´s sake?!´ Crabbe said absently. `Levitate her or something?´ He was deep in thought, trying to decide whether it was actually possible to locate Ireson at that point, and he didn´t quite have the capacity to focus on two things at once.

`I´d rather have my wand free, instead of guiding a levitating corpse around. We might be meeting more Aurors. I´d much rather be able to stick her in front of me and have my wand free at the same time.´

Crabbe seemed to get distracted from his train of thought by Aidan´s last comment, and he turned to look at him strangely.

`You´d rather she was conscious while you´re using her as a shield?´ he asked in disbelief. `Why?!´

`Simple psychology: even Aurors will find it harder to shoot at one of their own when they can clearly see that she´s alive and staring straight at them. If she looks like a floating corpse, they won´t even give it a second thought. I want them to give it a second thought because that gives me enough time to shoot first.´

Crabbe stared at Aidan in undisguised incredulity that was slowly turning into grudging admiration. He was beginning to see what Ireson saw in his new lapdog. Maybe it wasn´t such a good idea to kill him after all. It was probably best to let Ireson deal with him. Shame... At least he would make sure he was there to watch if Ireson decided -and he probably would -that White needed to be disciplined. Only, how to find him now? It was well nigh impossible in this chaos. For all Crabbe knew, Ireson might not even have been there any more. The best way was to send White straight to the pre-arranged meeting point. Ireson was due back there in less than an hour. Surely White would be able to keep this woman under control for that long. Besides, there would be others there to keep an eye on things.

`Go on, then. Enervate her,´ he said after a long, thoughtful pause. `We´re going to see Marcus. And you lot,´ he added suddenly, turning to the remaining group of Death Eaters. `Not that you´re any better! There´s half a dozen of you here, not counting her,´ he pointed at the woman still lying on the floor where she had fallen, `and you couldn´t stop a muggle car, with nothing but a single Auror standing in your way. It´s pathetic! If I had more time to deal with you, you would have paid for this, dearly. Don´t think that I don´t remember who you are! And don´t think that word of this won´t reach Lord Voldemort! Now, get a move on! You should be out there! There´s more game to be had outside. What the hell are you all doing down here anyway? Kill them and get out, or take them with you and finish them outside!´

* * *

`Ah! Severus! Just in time. And we were wanting to ask you a few questions,´ Pettigrew grinned in mock innocence.

`You didn´t answer my question,´ Snape interrupted him. `Why are you here, why are these two brats with you, and, most importantly, why is there a portal in my office?´

`The brats are here because of this,´ McNair went straight to the point, holding up the Earspy for Snape to see. `It has been sitting in your office for Merlin knows how long, and we found these two listening in on us. Do you have any idea how long this has been here for, and what these two have heard, and whom they may have told?´

Snape took one look at the Earspy and his eyes blazed up in mad fury. His lips tightened and turned white and a small muscle in the back of his jaw twitched, once. He turned to glare at Ron and Hermione with such undisguised, seething anger that both of them cringed and took a step back, only to run into McNair that was standing behind them. They jumped at the contact and gasped, distancing themselves hastily from him again. Seeing Snape like this made them both realise what true rage meant -justified rage, borne of betrayal. Everything they had seen from him thus far, all the temper and the rants and the tantrums, were but mere mild annoyance compared to this. When he spoke again, they could hear the effort he was making to keep himself under control in the strain in his voice.

`I see...´ he said slowly, carefully, his eyes never leaving Ron and Hermione. `No. I don´t know how long this has been going on for, nor do I know whom they might have told; it can´t have been anyone important, however, since I would have seen evidence of that by now. Someone would have said, or done, something if there was any evidence of my involvement with you. Everything has been blissfully normal in Hogwarts. This leaves my other question still to be answered. What is that portal doing in my office?´ Snape insisted, finally turning to look at McNair, Pettigrew and Turner again. `And, why didn´t I know about this before hand?´

`You didn´t know before hand, because the Master considered it might be dangerous. And, I hate to say this, but he was right,´ Pettigrew said, nodding meaningfully in the direction of the Earspy. `The portal is here because the Master ordered it to be installed.´

`To be used when?´ Snape asked without even blinking.

`At a later date,´ Pettigrew replied flatly.

`I see. For a full scale invasion, presumably?´

Pettigrew shrugged.

`The Master does not reveal all the complexities of his plans to me.´

`No. He wouldn´t,´ Snape agreed.

`This chit-chat is truly heart-warming, Snape, but we are running on a tight time schedule here, and we have to go,´ McNair interrupted them.

`Good idea. I would think that most of the staff will be on their way back any time now. Your diversion was not terribly impressive.´

`It was enough,´ McNair said, and Snape knew that he was right.

`What about the brats?´

`We´re taking them with us. They have to be interrogated. We need to know what they might have heard, and whom they might have told. I´m afraid your word on this doesn´t count for much.´

`No, I didn´t think it would have,´ Snape agreed calmly, turning to look at Ron and Hermione coldly again, before turning away and heading straight for a tall, oak cabinet by his desk. Without so much as a word, he unlocked it with his wand and reached inside.

`What the hell are you doing?´ McNair inquired, the irritation evident in his tone.

`Veritaserum,´ said Snape shortly, producing two tiny vials from the cabinet. `You don´t expect them to tell you the truth, do you? They´re teenagers. As far as I´m aware, teenagers are not actually capable of speaking the truth.´

Ophilia Turner sniggered quietly and McNair turned to look at her with an amused, lopsided grin.

`I have to say, Snape, I didn´t expect you to cooperate so willingly in all this. After all, they are your students, are they not?´

`So?´

`Oh, nothing,´ McNair waved his previous comment aside. `Forget I said anything. Now, let´s get out of here. Give us the Veritaserum and we´ll be out of your hair in no time.´

`You don´t understand,´ Snape explained with icy stiffness. `I´m coming with you. Firstly, it´s my problem, I only know what has gone on in this office, so I´m the only one that can ask the right questions, and, secondly, I don´t trust any of you to administer the correct doses of Veritaserum without killing them before we get what we need.´

McNair and Pettigrew looked at each other doubtfully. Finally, Pettigrew shook his head and shrugged.

`Fine,´ McNair agreed. `Now let´s get a move on.´

Turner walked through the portal first, then McNair, pushing Ron and Hermione in front of him, then Pettigrew motioned to Snape to follow them. He walked to the shimmering blue circle, and as he was about to step through it, one of two small vials slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor and shattering into a multitude of sparkling fragments.

`Oh, for Merlin´s sake!´ Pettigrew exclaimed in exasperation.

`Damn!´ murmured Snape, irritably. `Oh well, never mind. One vial should be more than enough,´ and he stepped through the flickering waters of the lagoon. No one saw the smug sneer that teased the corner of his mouth for a moment, and then was gone.

Pettigrew followed Snape through, sidestepping the glass shards carefully.

The portal flickered once and then faded into nothingness.

In the perfect silence of the deserted office, wispy tendrils of gleaming, silver smoke began rising languidly from the floor and the spilled contents of the shattered potion vial. They curled, twisted and arched upwards, searching, probing and tentatively investigating the invisible edges of the portal with zephyr´s fingers of silver. They coiled gently up around the radius of the gateway, one from either side, until they met at the very top of the circle in a tender kiss, suspended in mid air, like a luminous serpent eating its tail; a mark of entry to another realm.

* * *

Iris didn´t have to look at her watch to know that Snape had already been gone far longer that it could possibly have taken him to fly to the northern border of the grounds and back again. Even assuming he had then decided to fly round the entire school perimeter, he still should have returned by now. She decided to give him another two minutes, before she called everyone to fall back. The Dementors seemed to have learnt from their previous encounter with Hogwarts staff and could now be seen to be favouring a more guerrilla style warfare, rather than a full on frontal assault. Either that, or they were simply toying with them and trying to keep them busy. An empty sensation in the pit of her stomach was telling her that the latter was more likely and that Snape had been right, yet again.

`Minerva!´ she called out, while her Patronus was repelling what she was sure was the same Dementor for the fifth time. `Minerva, they´re just toying with us; just keeping us busy. We should go back. This is just a diversion!´

`Minerva, she´s right,´ Sirius Black shouted over Iris´s head. `This is a waste of time. They can´t get past the wardings anyway.´

`We can´t just ignore them,´ McGonagall called back, while something silver, in the shape of an enormous feline was leaping at the closest grey-robed figure who just streaked away hurriedly before the Patronus even came anywhere near it.

`Minerva, we have to go back!´ Iris insisted. `Severus should have returned by now. He was sure this was just a diversion and he went to check the rest of the grounds. He said that if he wasn´t here in ten minutes we should all double back. Something is very wrong about this and he´s been gone for far too long.´

`Probably making it all worse, even as we speak!´ Black observed offhandedly.

`Sirius!´ McGonagall exclaimed in her most shocked, disapproving voice. `Alright; Iris, you go back and try to find Severus. Sirius, go and call the others back from the northern border. We´ll try and finish up the job here and come back as quickly as possible. Alright people,´ she shouted, raising her voice so that the rest of the staff could hear her, `playtime is over. From now on, we aim not to repel, but to kill! Make short work of this, we have to go back!´

Sirius turned to say something to Iris and promptly clamped his mouth shut again. She was already flying away, nothing more than a black streak in the sky. He shook his head and, two seconds later, a large black dog started running at incredible speed back towards the school grounds.

* * *

In the Gryffindor common room, Fred, George and Harry sat together in a corner, round a table, staring fixedly at the grain pattern of the wood and biting their nails. Fred had looked at his watch six times in that past three minutes.

`Ok! That´s it!´ Harry suddenly exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. `I´m going out to look for them.´

`You´re doing nothing of the sort!´ George almost shouted. Everyone in the common room spun round to stare at him in surprise and he quickly closed his mouth and grinned sheepishly at them in response. Through clenched teeth and out of the corner of his mouth he continued hissing at Harry.

`Sit down before I make you!´

Harry slowly, reluctantly, complied, at the same time leaning over across the table to talk, quietly this time, to the twins.

`We can´t just sit here! We have to go out and look for them!´

`You´re not going anywhere!´ Fred snapped at him irritably. `I know you´re worried, and so are we, but that doesn´t mean that entitles you to act like an idiot! The school is under attack. You´re on highest priority in You-Know-Who´s list of "people to kill", which means you´re not leaving this room unless Dementors start coming in through the windows!´

`They´re probably in the secret closet, anyway -the morons!´ George whispered fiercely in an unsuccessful attempt at reassurance. `Why they couldn´t wait to go there after this slight problem was dealt with, I´ll never know, but there you are. What are the chances of anyone finding them in that closet, anyway?´

`I wouldn´t know! I´ve never seen it!´ Harry snapped back.

`Well, we have,´ said George, hotly, `and I say the chances are negligible, bordering on zero. Right Fred?!´

`Right! Well... Unless someone knows where to look, or can track the Earspy, but I mean, that´s about as likely as meeting a friendly Dementor. That thing´s one hundred years old. What are the chances of anyone knowing how to track it?´

George and Harry sat motionless, staring at each other for a moment and then they both turned slowly to look at Fred.

`What?´ Fred asked in genuine, indignant incomprehension.

`That Earspy can be tracked?´ George asked so sweetly his lips dripped honey.

`Of course. It wasn´t until the WW2E model that that slight security defect was fixed. The one we have is the WW1E model. Didn´t you know?´

George suddenly leapt onto Fred, grabbing him by his robe´s lapels, and screaming like a madman.

`AND YOU TELL ME NOW??!!´

The chair Fred was sitting on toppled over backwards and both twins found themselves on the floor, George still sprawled on top of Fred, shaking him viciously and still screaming.

`NOW?? YOU DIDN´T THINK THIS WAS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO MENTION EARLIER?!!´

`I -thought -you -knew...!´ Fred gasped between shakes.

`GEORGE!´ Harry yelled, vainly trying to catch George´s attention.

The entire common room was on their feet by now, gaping at the twins, in speechless astonishment, standing in a wide semi-circle around them. George didn´t even hear him.

`YOU´RE THE BLOODY GIZMO EXPERT!! HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS UNLESS YOU TELL ME!!´

`I -thought -you...´

George suddenly stopped short, turning away and letting go of Fred who, not expecting this abrupt change of heart, fell back with a painful sounding thud.

`Oww!´

George looked like a man on the verge of an anxiety attack.

`Oh my God. We´ve killed them. I know we have. We´ve killed them,´ he murmured in despair. All of a sudden he jumped up. `We´ve got to go find them! Now! Quick! Get up Fred. We´re leaving now!´

`George, calm down! Honestly, you needn´t worry. The Earspy´s been sitting there for months on end, without anyone noticing it. First of all, what are the odds of anyone finding it now, of all times, and secondly, the Dementors are outside the castle, not inside!´

`HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW??!´ George suddenly grabbed Fred again, screaming, and pulled him up against his face. `Harry, go get your cloak,´ he added in a perfectly normal tone immediately afterwards.

`Dementors?! What Dementors?´ someone asked, as Fred´s comment began sinking in.

George turned round to face the rest of the Gryffindors. He didn´t know and didn´t care who had asked the question.

`You hear that persistent wailing noise like a siren? That´s a Dementor alarm. It means there´s Dementors somewhere outside the school grounds, trying to get in.´

`What?!´

`Where?!´

`How the hell do you know?´

`What´s a Dementor?´

`Someone please explain to her what a Dementor is,´ George said, turning away from the rabble. He didn´t know the name of the first-year that had asked a very reasonable question and he didn´t have the time to care, either.

`A Dementor is a thing that...´ someone started to explain, patiently.

`I said how the hell do you know that?´ Lee insisted.

`... and if it catches you...´

`It´s a long story,´ Fred began placatingly. `We´ll tell you all about it when we get back.´

`...kisses you...´

As if on cue, Harry reappeared with his cloak.

`What?! Where are you going? Are you mad?!´ Lee cried.

`...and sucks out your soul.´

Three first-years screamed and disappeared, running, up the stairs.

`Look, Hermione and Ron are not here, in case you hadn´t noticed. Which means they´re somewhere out there. Now, me and Fred are going out to find them, and if anyone here breathes a word of this to anyone outside this room, I mean anyone, ever, or tries to stop us leaving, I will personally turn them into a frog, barbeque them and have frog´s legs for dinner. I´m told it´s a great delicacy in France!... Now, are we understood?´

Silence greeted his last words.

`Good.´

`I´m coming with you,´ Harry stated calmly.

Fred and George both spun round to face him.

`YOU´RE DOING NOTHING OF THE SORT!´ they both yelled in unison.

`Besides, Harry, all three of us don´t fit under the cloak,´ Fred tried to explain more patiently. `Me and George hardly fit under it as it is.´

`Don´t care. I´m coming with you.´

`No. You´re not,´ said George flatly and headed for the portrait of the Fat Lady. `Lee, hold him,´ he instructed without even turning. `Don´t let him out of your sight.´

`You can´t do this!!´ Harry cried. `They´re my friends.´

`We know. And you´re our friend, which is why we can do this, and we will,´ said Fred, turning briefly, as he headed for the door. `Sorry Harry. We´ll bring them back! Promise!´

* * *

Aidan led Phaedra, at wand point, out of the building through long deserted corridors and disused service areas, with Crabbe coming up behind them and watching them hawkishly. It was surprisingly easy if you knew where you were going, and Crabbe obviously did. It looked like the Death Eater attack was focused on certain areas of the building only, allowing for a couple of quiet, secret, escape routes, in case of emergency. It was a remarkably well-set-out plan. Although Death Eaters wouldn´t have had trouble simply Disapparating from anywhere in the building, if they were trying to take prisoners with them, then they would have needed to find more mundane means of escaping from the mayhem. Ireson had admittedly done a bang-up job.

Just inside a small, discreet service exit, Crabbe called to him to stop.

`Ok. That´s it. Hold up.´

Aidan did as he was told and pulled Phaedra back with him to allow Crabbe to pass in front of their little troupe. Crabbe stopped barely five yards from the door and raised his wand.

`Aperi Porta,´ he instructed casually.

Almost immediately, a shimmering, blue portal began appearing, strikingly similar to the one that had suddenly opened up in the middle of the Chamber of Commons half an hour earlier. Aidan was impressed. Portals, he had not been expecting. Apparition and Disapparation were generally the preferred modes of travel for most wizards. Portals, however, did have their advantages for the truly security conscious wizarding army. It meant you could take large numbers of people, instantaneously, to and from any number of secret locations, without them knowing either where they were, or necessarily, where they were going. This minimized the risk of security leaks, and if, by some freak chance someone managed to follow you, you could always be sure of exactly where they would appear -a location which, of course, you could have heavily guarded, at all times. Something told Aidan that he wasn´t about to go anywhere even remotely familiar to him. Which meant that, even if Phaedra escaped, there was no chance of any sort of Auror cavalry suddenly showing up afterwards. She wouldn´t know where to send them. Sweet.

`Now, listen to me,´ Crabbe suddenly turned to face Aidan. `I´m sending you to meet Ireson. You are to wait for him at the location where you exit the portal. He is going to show up there in the next few minutes, and I will be coming as soon as I´ve finished here. If I find out that you weren´t there when he arrived, if I find out that she wasn´t there when he arrived, if you make me look bad in any way, I will make it my personal mission in life to hunt you -and her -down and make you regret the day you were born. I will personally tear out your insides and make you watch while I knit a sweater with them. Is that clear?´

`Crystal.´

`Good. Now, get going.´

* * *

Snape walked through the portal and out into a brisk spring breeze that somehow felt sticky and seemed to cling to his skin. The smell of salt in the air seeped down through his nostrils and filled his mouth, letting him instantly know that he had just walked out somewhere near the ocean; only afterwards did he hear the roar of the first wave crashing against the rocks at the bottom of a cliff he could now see stretching away on his right hand side. He used the few seconds it took Pettigrew to reappear behind him to get his bearings, even though he was quite certain he had never seen this place before in his life, nor had any idea where it might have been. He might have just come out in Timbuktu, for all he knew, although the chill of the wind and the raging ocean waters told him that this was probably a bit further north than that; in fact, northern Scotland wouldn´t have seemed unreasonable as a guess. Then again, it might have been the Orkneys, or even North West Ireland, Sweden or Norway. There was no way to tell. Still, he made sure to commit all major landmarks to memory, along with some basic sense of direction; it was always a good idea to know where about the portal was standing, and roughly where North, South, East and West were. If he ever left this place, alive, then it was something that might be found useful in identifying the location.

There were scraggly trees off to his left, about twenty to twenty-five yards away; not many of them, maybe just over half a dozen. Straight ahead, north, he thought that was, maybe one hundred or more yards away, he could see the beginnings of a sparse wood -conifers, most of them, he was sure. The ground was uneven, mostly bare earth, with some rocky patches and scrubby wild grass. An enormous boulder, surrounded by some -apparently randomly strewn -smaller ones, stood somewhere behind him and to his left. It was a good landmark. He noted that the portal stood between that cluster of rocks and the edge of the cliff -rather too close to the edge of the cliff, in fact. Strategically speaking, of course, it was a good position for a portal, it was only personally speaking that the proximity of the cliff made his life that tiny little bit more difficult, as if it wasn´t difficult enough already. He had to be careful with the brats now; extra careful. There was no point trying to get them out of this interrogation, only to have them flying off the edge of a precipice. He allowed himself a brief fantasy of what he would do to the two little idiots if he ever managed to make it back to Hogwarts with them in one piece. Detention sounded like a good and fair idea -for the entire rest of their school career. And that was letting them off lightly, as far as he was concerned.

Pettigrew came through the portal and closed it behind him.

`Claude Porta,´ he said and the blue sparkling waters faded from sight.

Snape ignored him and walked over to where that abominable woman, Turner, was standing, watching over Ron and Hermione. They were sitting on a couple of rocks, close together, knees drawn up to their chests and arms wrapped around their legs. Their eyes kept flitting, fearfully, from Turner, to McNair, to Pettigrew and back again. Ron and Hermione looked down, hurriedly, as they saw Snape approaching and caught his eye. They almost looked ashamed of themselves, he noted cynically. Almost.

`So, this is it? You want me to interrogate them here?´ he asked sarcastically of Pettigrew. `In the middle of nowhere?´

`It´s as good a place as any,´ McNair said casually. `Pleasant, if you ask me.´

`So we´re going to be here for a while then?´ asked Snape rhetorically, with very apparent lack of interest. He seemed entirely focused on glaring angrily at the children.

`Why? Is this going to take long?´

`If you want it done properly.´

`I don´t think we´ll start their interrogation just yet,´ Pettigrew interrupted them.

`Why not? You have any better ideas?´ Snape sneered.

`No... I just think it would be best if you waited for the Master to get here first. I´m sure he will be interested in hearing this.´

`I see...´ said Snape, slowly, his eyes never leaving Ron and Hermione, the utter flatness of his tone belying the sudden, painful sensation of his stomach contracting. This just kept getting better and better. `And when is that going to happen?´ he asked, without so much as batting an eyelid.

`Soon. I am going to go and report to him now. There are other of our members that he will be meeting here shortly, so I wouldn´t think this will take too long.´

`I can´t wait,´ Snape sneered again, and this time the reaction was genuine. `So we shouldn´t be surprised if more people suddenly start Apparating here soon.´

`No.´

`And we shouldn´t kill any one of them.´

`No.´

`Just checking.´

McNair sniggered. He didn´t trust Snape one bit, in much the same way one never trusts people that are smarter than oneself and one knows they have only got where they are by fooling people that should have been smarter than that. Nevertheless, he couldn´t help but find Snape´s casual evilness amusing, on occasion. The man wasn´t utterly without merit.

Pettigrew shook his head silently and Disapparated.

`So, McNair´ Snape began finally, releasing Ron and Hermione from his stare for the first time since he had arrived there. It was hard to miss the droning sound of boredom in his tone. `What´s all this about then? Or aren´t you privy to the Master´s plans either.´

McNair smirked.

`Wouldn´t you like to know? Since the Master didn´t see fit to let you in on this plan, I don´t see why I should.´

Snape shrugged.

`Perhaps because there´s a portal sitting in my office and I already know about it. Presumably, it wasn´t part of the plan that I should be aware of this, was it?´

`Can´t get anything past you, can we?´

Snape just smirked derisively and, turning his back on McNair, walked casually over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Massive, razor-sharp rocks on the bottom; what else could a man ask for?

`Well, you´re obviously not about to invade Hogwarts today, so I´m assuming the portal is for future use.´

`You assume.´

`I doubt the Master is quite as dim as you, McNair, so, if the invasion was planned for today it would be happening as we speak, before everyone got back from that pathetic attempt at a distraction with the Dementors. I wonder what the Master´s waiting for.´

`The right time.´

Snape turned to look at McNair

`A better time than today? There won´t be another opportunity like this.´

`That´s what you think.´

Snape´s eyes narrowed.

`If you think you´re going to manage to get Dumbledore out of that school before you can invade, I think you´re going to have to think again.´

McNair grinned happily at him and said nothing for a moment.

`Oh, I think after today it won´t be that difficult,´ he said in the end.

`After today?´ Snape´s brow furrowed even more, his eyes turning into mere feline slits of blackness.

`Let´s just say that he´ll have his hands full for a while.´

The man couldn´t possibly have been talking about the Dementors. That was nothing more than a pathetic joke, in Hogwarts terms. Obviously there was something else they were all up to today. Without knowing why, he was sure it had nothing to do with Hogwarts, directly.

Snape´s features changed, suddenly, as realisation dawned on him, and the usual dismissive disinterest returned to his tone.

`Oh, I see. There´s something else going on today too. What is it? Mudblood genocide? Muggle genocide? Both? An attack on the Ministry itself?´

McNair grinned again and shrugged with exaggerated innocence.

`What do I know?´

Snape briefly contemplated just killing McNair on the spot, for his own personal satisfaction, and then decided that he needed to get the brats back to Hogwarts first, so at least someone survived to relay all this information to Dumbledore. He turned to look at Ron and Hermione and, this time, he held their eyes in his own for a few seconds. The anger that had so terrified them earlier wasn´t there any more; only calm calculation. His eyes were speaking to them, they knew, only they were not sure they were understanding his words.

`Enough,´ the reply to McNair´s question came with several seconds´ delay. `You told me all I needed to know,´ Snape finished meaningfully, his eyes still locked onto Ron and Hermione´s. He had pulled the tiny bottle of Veritaserum from his pocket and was toying absently with it. They shifted under his gaze and stole a worried glance at each other. He was about to do something mad, wasn´t he?

* * *

Fred and George slid silently, or as silently as they could manage, down the school´s deserted corridors, safely hidden from view by Harry´s invisibility cloak. They kept bumping into each other, and treading on each other´s toes, in their effort to both stay under the cloak. They were getting too old for this. One cloak for both of them was stretching its capacity a bit. Nevertheless, with a few muffle grunts and stifled groans on the way, they managed to reach their destination.

They took one look at the closet´s open door and froze. They didn´t have to look inside to know that things had gone horribly wrong, as George had predicted. That door was never left open. Ever. Never-ever.

Gingerly, they approached the dark, open doorway and peaked inside. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even the Earspy they themselves had left there earlier that day. For a couple of moments they stood there, transfixed to the spot, staring into the semi darkness. Then they turned and looked at each other. Now what? The best they could dare to hope for was that Snape himself had discovered Ron and Hermione and that they were, even now, in his office, getting detention for the rest of their lives. Where else could Ron and Hermione possibly have decided to go in the midst of a crisis like this, leaving the door to a secret closet open, for good measure?

Fred and George turned, simultaneously, without uttering a word, and headed for Snape´s office. It took them a few minutes, but they finally reached his door, where they stopped, looking at it doubtfully. They strained to hear voices from the other side, but there was nothing but silence. Experience told them that if Snape were in there with Ron and Hermione, they would have been able to hear him screaming three corridors and two flights of stairs away. That meant that, either the office was empty, or Snape was in there on his own. On the other hand, they had seen him flying away to go and fend off Dementors. Was it possible that Ron and Hermione, for some reason that totally and completely escaped the twins, were so mad that they had sneaked into Snape´s office while he was away? There was nothing to do but find out.

George raised his wand and pointed it at the door, cringing as far away from it as possible, at the same time, fear of Snape´s notorious wards being not entirely unreasonable, even now.

`Alohomora,´ he whispered. The door clicked softly and began swinging open.

For no more than a moment, George and Fred stood there, gaping in awe at the scene in front of them. A huge, silver, shimmering circle hung suspended in mid air. On the floor, in front of it, the sparkling, clear remnants of what could only have been a potion bottle lay strewn. Suddenly, Fred grabbed the door and slammed it shut again, in much the same way one would have, if what they had seen on the side were not an empty office, but a lion about to pounce. They remained, both of them, standing there, staring at the closed door in stunned silence.

`I think we´re out of our league here,´ Fred finally said, matter-of-factly.

`Yes. I think we are,´ George agreed with the same kind of flatness in his voice.

They turned to look at each other.

`I also think the invisibility cloak is pretty much redundant now,´ said Fred.

`Yup.´

`We need to go and find someone, I think.´

`Yup.´

`Any preferences?´

`Dumbledore.´

`Except Dumbledore.´

`´d take too long to find?´

`Yup.´

`Right.´

George grabbed his end of the cloak and pulled it off their heads.

`At this point, anyone will do. McGonagall or Raveneye would be nice, but I´m not picky.´

`Great. Me neither.´

They turned and headed off down the corridor at a run.

* * *

Snape paced silently around Ron and Hermione, his eyes never leaving them, the potion bottle still in his hand, rolling smoothly around under his long white fingers. Ron and Hermione stole another apprehensive look at each other as Snape, almost absently, set the potion bottle down on a large rock beside them, and walked around to tower over them again. Slowly, casually, he reached into his robes and drew out his wand. Both Ron and Hermione had seen Snape´s wand before, many a time, but somehow, the dark, sturdy, unyielding oak-wood wand now carried such an aura of power about it, it almost seemed to pulsate with latent menace. They both tried to back away from him, without actually moving in the process. Ron´s hand sought and found Hermione´s and gripped it tightly. He could never remember being so frightened before in his life and, if he was anything to go by, Hermione would be feeling pretty much the same. Snape extended his wand and, with its tip, raised Hermione´s head so she was forced to look into his eyes.

`There really isn´t any point in looking at each other like that all the time. What are you going to do? Make a run for it?´ he sneered quietly, his voice deep, sleek and smooth like velvet. `The only way you´re getting out of here is through that portal, and somehow I doubt you have the knowledge, or the ability, to open it -let alone take all three of us down in the process, which would be the only way you would get anywhere near it in the first place.´

McNair sniggered and Turner snorted derisively, turning her back on the three of them for the first time.

It happened almost simultaneously, as she turned; suddenly, Snape was spinning away from the children.

`Aperi Porta!´ he cried, wand pointing precisely in the direction of the invisible gateway.

There was a blinding flash of blue-white light as the portal burst open, and the sound of Snape´s voice again, shouting a hex, and a scream, that seemed to go on and on, fading into the distance until it was abruptly cut short. Ron and Hermione´s eyes recovered from the blinding flash just in time to see Turner flying off the edge of the cliff.

`RUN!´ Snape roared as he turned again, this time to face McNair who had only just managed to pull out his wand and locate the survivor of the infinitely brief duel, which had taken place while he was being blinded by the portal´s flash; only he wasn´t there any more. Snape had Disapparated. and was just Apparating again between McNair and the children.

For a moment, Ron and Hermione remained rooted to the spot.

`RUN!´ Snape cried again, raising his wand against McNair

Ron leapt up, pulling Hermione with him, and belted for the portal.

`Come on!´ he shouted, yanking her with him with everything he had.

Two curses were shouted behind them, there was another flash of light, an explosion, someone swore; then, Snape´s voice again, interrupted by McNair´s gruff roar.

There was a fraction of a second of silence, then a rather sickening thud as a body slammed into the ground with bone-shattering force and a pained gasp.

`Don´t look back!´ Ron cried, but Hermione had already turned. Instinct taking over, Ron followed her gaze just before he yanked her, screaming, with him through the open portal.

Wand pointing down, McNair stood over Snape, smirking evilly, and squinting at him through bleary eyes. He was still half-blind from the first curse Snape had hurled at him and which he hadn´t quite managed to counter.

`One move, so much as a muscle twitch, and you´re dead,´ he grunted. `As you can tell, I can see you well enough to be able to aim, although I´ll probably not have the pleasure of seeing the expression on your face...´ He raised his free hand and Snape´s wand flew into his waiting fingers. `Just to be on the safe side, huh?´ he added conversationally. `You know, all that was probably worth it, just for the chance of seeing what the Master is going to do to you when he gets here. What do you think? Was your life worth that of the two little brats?´

A very distinct whooshing sound and another flash of bright light as a second portal opened, a score yards away and directly opposite the first one, interrupted McNair´s soliloquy. He glanced up, briefly, wand never wavering from Snape´s throat by so much as even a millimetre. Two figures stepped through the portal; and then stopped.

Aidan´s grip on Phaedra´s arm tightened as he pulled her to a halt. There was something seriously wrong about this scene. It was definitely not what he had been expecting to see.

`Why the hell do you have a muggle with you?´ McNair growled. `And why are you alone? Where´s the others?´

`They´re not finished yet. The show is still going on; and she´s not a muggle. She´s an Auror. The place was crawling with them,´ Aidan replied without so much as blinking. He began approaching McNair, slowly, carefully, his eyes flitting from him, to Snape´s prone form.

`You brought an Auror here?´ McNair asked in disbelief.

`For questioning. She´s subdued, anyway,´ Aidan replied, as if it wasn´t obvious. `We need to find out how they knew about our little operation. What the hell´s going on here, anyway?´ he added without a pause.

`It seems we caught ourselves a traitor,´ McNair sneered with evident self-satisfaction. `I guess that Veritaserum isn´t going to go to waste after all...´

Aidan frowned in puzzlement and glanced around the clearing, briefly. The sunlight glinting off the tiny potion bottle still standing where Snape had left it, on the large boulder, caught his eye. Veritaserum What the hell was going on here?

`Call me stupid, but I´m not following. I was under the impression that he was one of us?´

`So did we. Turns out, he´s working for the other side. He just helped two prisoners escape and killed one of our own in the process. Isn´t that so, you slimy bastard?´

`Prisoners? What prisoners? Muggles?´

`Two kids from Hogwarts that know far too much for their own good. You do realise they´re not going to live, anyway, don´t you? They´re right up there at the top of the hit-list now, so I guess it was all for naught, your little exhibition of heroism, wasn´t it, Snape?´

Aidan´s frown deepened. This really wasn´t right; and it was proving a bit too much for him to digest at this particular moment in time. Snape did that? Snape? The sneering evil bastard that, just looking at him, made Aidan´s stomach churn? This was making no sense whatsoever and was all just a bit too much for one day. Aidan had a burning desire to simply scream in frustration, then hand in his resignation and walk away. And then he remembered.

Iris.

With an almost audible click, the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place and Aidan understood. Posted in Hogwards for months on end, and the worst she had been able to bring herself to call Snape was `unpleasant´. She had also refused to answer any questions about her assignment there. Knowing Iris, her refusal to utter even a single harsh word against Snape meant that she probably liked him -a lot. No, `liked´ was an insufficient word; `respected´ was more precise. The only thing Aidan still didn´t know, and couldn´t find out now, was whether Snape was aware of what Iris´s appointment to Hogwarts entailed. If he had to guess, he´d say that Snape didn´t have the faintest idea who Iris was, or what she was doing. After all, knowing too much about what other agents were up to was always a recipe for disaster in this game.

`Great!´ Aidan thought silently, as it all sank in. As if he didn´t have enough problems already. Now he had to decide, quickly, it looked like, what he was going to do about this little situation here. If he did nothing, Snape was going to be dead within the day, probably forced to give the bastards vital information in the process (they had the Veritaserum sitting there, ready and waiting), and Dumbledore would lose an important double agent in the process. On the other hand, if he did anything overt he would blow his own cover too -which meant no double agents left within Death Eater ranks at all -as far as he knew, at least. If this didn´t qualify as being caught between a rock and a hard place, he didn´t know what did. The problem was, he also didn´t know how much Snape knew and how significant the information they could potentially extract from him was. If he was going to be honest, he had to admit that, potentially, the information could be of huge importance, which meant he had to do something, whether that meant blowing his cover or not. At the end of the day, maybe he could get away with it if there were no witnesses left. He´d have to make up a believable story, as to why McNair would be found dead, but he thought he already had the beginnings of a plan in mind.

`What?´ Phaedra´s voice in his head interrupted the lightning fast thoughts streaking through his mind.

`We have a problem,´ Aidan replied.

`Another one?´

`Yes. Huge problem.´

`What?´

`That guy´s one of us.´

`Snape?!´ Phaedra asked in stunned disbelief.

`You know him?´

`Of course I know him. Everyone that has graduated from Hogwarts in the past fifteen years knows him. Are you quite sure he´s on our side? I mean...´

`Yes. He is. We´ve been watching him for months. Now, our problem is getting him out of this. We can´t let them question him. It could be disastrous for us.´

`Great!´

`That´s what I said.´

`...So... what´d we do?´

`First of all, you get the hell out of here, and back to the Haven. One of us needs to survive to tell the tale and give them this location.´

`What?!´

`Phaedra, just do as I fucking say, alright? This is perfect. Just one Death Eater here, you can slip off, no problem, I can take the bastard, and get Snape to take off too, before anyone else shows up and makes things harder. Please don´t argue, there´s no time.´

`Fine.´

And then it happened. With the worst possible timing Aidan had ever encountered, the portal behind them flashed, air seemed to be sucked into it with a hair-raising hiss and two more figures stepped through the shimmering blue waters.

* * *

George and Fred ran up to the staff room first. Finding no one there, they ran back downstairs and tried McGonagall´s office. Unsurprisingly, she was not there; at which point they decided that the Great Hall and the main entrance was worth a try. Someone was bound to be guarding the castle´s main door. They made it as far as the Great Hall before they ran into Filch.

`What the bloody hell are you two doing out of your common room?´ he growled in shocked fury. `I´ll skin you both alive for this. Detention for the rest of your lives is not enough.´

Fred and George took the time to glance at one another once, and then they whipped their wands out, in perfect synchronisation.

`We´re sorry, but this is a real emergency and we don´t have the time to discuss it. If you know where any teacher might be found now, we´d be happy to be taken to them. Otherwise, please get out of our way.´

`What?! You insolent little brats! You dare to threaten me? You´ll pay for this! You...´

Fred raised his wand.

`Stupefy,´ he said flatly and pocketed his wand again.

`Sorry Filch,´ George added, and they took off again.

They could see the great double doors guarding the entrance to Hogwarts castle straight ahead, and were starting to wonder whether they were magically locked, when the doors started swinging silently open. Fred and George skidded to an apprehensive stop. If they were lucky, this was one of the teachers returning; otherwise, it was a full-scale invasion and they were going to be the first ones the invading army would lay eyes on.

George literally groaned in relief when he saw the unmistakeable black, billowing robes and streaming hair of Iris Raveneye, as she sprinted into the hall, spotted them, and forced herself to come to a stop.

`What are you two doing here?!´ she cried.

`Looking for you!´ said George hurriedly. `Come with us, quickly! Something´s terribly wrong.´

Strangely, she didn´t bombard them with questions. The expression on her face told the twins that she had been expecting -and fearing -this. They had never seen her look so apprehensive before, and frankly, the realisation was less than comforting.

`Where?´ was all she asked.

`Snape´s office -I mean, Professor Snape´s -´

With a use of language that managed to shock even the twins, she started running off, in the direction of the dungeons. Taken by surprise, the twins took off after her a second later.

`Is that your handy work?´ she asked, with patently obvious disinterest, as they passed Filch´s stunned figure.

`Er... yes. We´re sorry, but he tried to...´

`I don´t care,´ Raveneye interrupted them, to their utter and complete surprise.

George shot Fred a worried look, but he didn´t say anything. They just continued running.

* * *

Ron stumbled through the portal, physically hauling Hermione with him. Being faced now with nothing more than the blue, gleaming waters of the portal, her scream subsided into a sobbing whimper.

`It´s okay,´ said Ron shakily, gripping her shoulders and trying to gently pull her away from the gateway, before anyone else decided to appear through it. She was still staring at it, panting and shaking, and refusing to move. `Come on Hermione,´ Ron urged her softly, `we´ve got to-´

`-Go back.´

`WhAT?!´

Suddenly, she spun around and grabbed Ron by his robes. He had seen her frantic before, but never like this. He found himself shocked into silence.

`We´ve got to go back!´ Hermione cried. `We´ve got to help him!´

`Hermione! We can´t help him. We´ve got to go find someone who can.´

`RON,´ she screamed, `there´s no time! By the time we find anyone he might be dead. Dead! Do you understand? Like Cedric!´

`He´s probably dead already; and so will we be if we go back!´ Ron shouted fiercely. `You want us to go back, straight into a Death Eater convention centre. Didn´t you hear anything? You-Know-Who´s going to show up there -soon! We can´t help! We´ll get killed too, and then all that would have been for nothing. He wanted us to get back so we could tell Dumbledore and the others what´s going on. Someone has to. We can´t help him. At least, let´s not make his sacrifice meaningless.´

`Ron, if you´re not prepared to go back, then I will,´ Hermione said with such cold, flat determination that it made Ron´s skin crawl. `Right now, there´s only McNair there. If we don´t waste more time, and wait for more people to show up, we can take him. Both of us together, he won´t be expecting us, we´ll surprise him and blast him into oblivion. Both of us together can do it. Remember two years ago, with Snape? We did it then, we can do it now. We don´t even have to move away from the portal. If we go through and see that there´s twenty Death Eaters there and Snape is dead, we can just jump back through again. Now, make up your mind quickly, because I´m going, and, I swear to GOD, if you try and stop me, I´ll zap you. Just consider this: We got him into this. He saved our lives: We owe him a life-debt. A Wizard´s life-debt.´

She fell silent, and Ron just stood there staring at her, his mind frantically trying to sort through the horrifying dilemma she had just landed him in. He knew that he was right, and that the best thing they could possibly do was to go and find someone qualified, and actually capable of helping. On the other hand, she was right too. They were responsible for all this and now he owed Snape a life-debt, and there was absolutely nothing in the Wizarding world that came above that. He had to pay his debt, even if that meant jeopardizing his own life in the process.

Suddenly, Ron spun around, ran to Snape´s desk, grabbed the first piece of parchment he could find and the glossy, black quill standing upright in the ink well, and started scribbling something frantically.

`Ron?´ Hermione inquired.

He didn´t answer her, but continued writing as fast as he could; then he turned around, brandishing the piece of parchment with grim determination.

`If we can´t be here to tell anyone what´s going on, we can at least leave a note. Someone´s bound to find it, sooner or later,´ he said and, purposefully, let the piece of parchment drift slowly to the cold, stone-paved floor.

Hermione smiled proudly at him and pulled out her wand.

`Ready then?´

`Ready,´ Ron replied grimly and drew his own wand from his robes. He walked over to where Hermione was still standing, in front of the open portal, and took his place beside her. They both turned to face the gateway, gritted their teeth, took a deep breath and stepped through.

* * *

`I hesitate to ask what in hell´s name is going on here, but I´m afraid I am obliged to,´ Ireson´s icy voice forced everyone´s attention to turn to the newcomers. Ireson and Nott were standing exactly where they had stopped on stepping through the portal.

Aidan turned his head to look at them briefly, and then went back to staring at McNair

`This just keeps getting better and better,´ he said silently, as he tossed a coin in his head in an effort to decide which one of the two possible targets he was now going to go for first.

`Ah, Ireson. Just the man for the occasion,´ McNair grinned casually.

`Now what?´ Phaedra enquired calmly.

`Now nothing. We go ahead as planned. As soon as I attack Ireson -that´s the bastard that just showed up -you summon your wand and Disapparate and go straight to the Haven.´

`What the hell is all this about, McNair? And, Aidan, why have you got a muggle with you?´

`You have got to be joking.´

Aidan ignored her.

`She´s an Auror. She´s here for questioning,´ Aidan repeated the line for the third time.

`Get ready, on the count of three...´

`I see...´

`One.´

`Aidan! This is mad!´

`... and why is Snape...´

`Two.´

With a slight pop, Pettigrew suddenly apparated into the clearing. For a moment, he stood there, staring around him in disbelief, his expression becoming progressively more panic-ridden as realisation started sinking in.

`Why´s the portal open?´ he asked immediately, `and... where´s Turner and the kids?! Oh Merlin,´ he breathed frantically, and ignoring everyone, raced to the portal, his wand ready drawn and pointing at it. `McNair you blithering idiot, why didn´t you seal the portal? That´s the first thing you should have done. It´s open! Anyone can come through!´

In his panic, he didn´t notice the faint whooshing sound of the portal letting travellers through, as he opened his mouth to speak the incantation.

`Claude...´ was as far as he got, the rest of the sentence drifting off in stunned surprise, as he found himself face to face with Ron and Hermione. That fraction of a moment of hesitation was all that they needed.

`Expelliarmus!´ both of them cried loudly.

Pettigrew was flung backwards off his feet, falling, stunned, to the ground, his wand flying out of his fingers.

`Three,´ Aidan added mentally, just to satisfy his own personal sense of irony, whilst shouting a curse out loud.

`What the...?´ McNair growled, turning his attention from Snape to the children, while Aidan was spinning around, the curse he had just shouted, manifesting as a bright beam of jagged blue energy issuing from the tip of his wand and aimed at Ireson. As Phaedra´s wand, summoned, sped into her hand, Ireson blocked the sizzling shaft of light, and was getting ready to reply in kind.

`Expelliarmus,´ Phaedra cried, pointing her wand at Nott, who was knocked back, as if hit by a physical force, staggered and just managed to catch himself. Growling with anger he turned his wand at her, but, with a faint pop, she was gone.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he was blocking something coming at him -he didn´t even know what it was -Aidan saw a dark, sturdy wand flying into Snape´s waiting hand. With two light pops in quick succession, Snape Disapparated. and apparated again on McNair´s other side. Aidan could have sworn he heard Snape´s disembodied, unmistakeable voice speaking the hex that exploded in McNair´s face, even before Snape appeared out of thin air, in front of the Death Eater.

With a scream McNair fell back, clutching at his face. Aidan was sure he heard the sizzling of burning flesh, but he didn´t have the time to do anything more than simply register the sensation, as he hurled another curse in Ireson´s direction. And then he caught Snape´s eye, for a moment only; a moment that somehow seemed to last much longer than it had any right to. For that one second, Snape´s wand had been pointing straight at him, calmly, dispassionately and Aidan had known, without the faintest shadow of a doubt that, had Snape decided to use it, he would have died, instantly. Snape´s eyes had held his own, the coal black gaze piercing right through Aidan´s head, in that single instant discerning, considering and finally passing judgement; then Snape had whirled away from him again.

`Go back!´ Snape shouted fiercely at Ron and Hermione. `Now! Run!!´

But they had just noticed Nott, turning his attentions to them; he had raised his wand, and opened his mouth, the first syllable was being spoken.

`Expelliarmus!´ both of them screamed in tandem.

Nott stumbled backwards with an outraged cry, his wand trying to fly out of his grasp, but, somehow, he managed to keep a hold of it.

`Spread out!´ Hermione cried to Ron. `Spread out!´

She didn´t have to say it again. Ron instinctively knew what she was trying to do; if they were both on opposite sides of the clearing, they couldn´t be attacked simultaneously with things like large explosions, whilst they could still try to jointly disarm people. Ron and Hermione ran away from each other, distracting Nott in the process, who now had to decide which brat he should go for first.

`Go back!´ Snape was yelling at them, but they hardly registered his voice, over another set of curses being hurled at each other by Ireson and Aidan, and the enormous blast that erupted mere feet behind Ron. He was flung forward by the force of the explosion, and fell, stunned to the ground.

`Ron!!´ Hermione screamed, as Snape was spinning round in Nott´s direction and a lightning bolt erupted from his wand, striking the ground precisely where Nott had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. He wasn´t there any more. Now, he was standing in front of the portal, wand raised, and ready to seal it.

`Claude Porta!´ he cried.

* * *

As if in anticipation of her approach, the door to Snape´s office burst open even before Iris had come within five yards of it. She staggered to a stop as soon as she crossed the threshold, staring in desperate disbelief at the circle of shimmering, silver serpents hanging suspended in mid-air. Her eyes flew from what was very obviously some sort of portal, to the fragments of the potion bottle lying in front of it, to the piece of scribbled parchment in the middle of the floor.

She raised her hand and the parchment flew into her waiting fingers. She scanned the hurried, smudged scrawl quickly, and then shoved it into one of the twins´ hands; she didn´t even notice which one.

`Why the hell does he always have to be right?´ she murmured under her breath, and then, out loud: `Take that to Dumbledore, quickly! The password to his office is Flying Tart. And stay out of this! Don´t make me say it again. I don´t have the time.´

She walked up to the portal, pulled her wand out and took a deep breath. Who knew what was waiting for her on the other side?

`Go!´ she said vehemently, spinning round to glare at the twins. They were still standing at the doorway, reading Ron´s note. They looked up at her in wide-eyed horror.

`This wasn´t here before,´ Fred breathed.

Iris´s eyes narrowed.

`Which means they came back and left again. At least we know that they were still alive five minutes ago,´ she sighed. `Now, you two! Don´t you dare follow me through this thing. I´ll bring them back, I promise. Please, just take this to Dumbledore!´

The twins nodded, mutely.

Iris turned back to the gateway. `Aperi Porta!´ she ordered, and, with a gush of wind and a flash, the portal opened.

* * *

Nott Disapparated. again, as soon as he had uttered the words that sealed the portal. He wasn´t stupid. Staying in one place too long in a situation like this meant you got lightning bolts in the face -and Snape was a good shot. He re-apparated several yards in front of Hermione.

`Don´t kill the kids!´ Pettigrew was screeching. `We want them alive!´

Hermione screamed something Nott didn´t quite catch as he was shouting his own hex at her and was trying not to listen to Pettigrew, at the same time. He was quite surprised when his hex rebounded off a solid, but quite invisible, wall that seemed to be standing around her. Somehow he didn´t have her down as capable of a shield charm as solid as that. And then a beam of dazzling blue light hit him. He screamed, as he was thrown off his feet, and his wand fell from his grasp. Hermione looked up, just before starting to run back towards Ron. Aidan´s wand was still pointing at exactly the spot where Nott had been standing, and he was shouting at her to run. She did. And, as she did so, she saw McNair, on his feet again, standing behind Snape, his face scorched almost beyond recognition, his robes singed and still smoking, with his wand raised in Snape´s direction. Snape´s wand was pointing at Pettigrew. Hermione skidded to a stop.

Pettigrew had just grabbed Ron and was pulling him to his feet. McNair had just opened his mouth.

Her eyes darted from Pettigrew, to Snape, to McNair

`Fulgur deleo,´ Snape was shouting.

`Praestringi,´ Ireson´s voice came, behind her, accompanied by a blinding flash of white light.

`Avada -´

`-Expelliarmus!´ Hermione screamed in desperation, interrupting McNair´s incantation, at the same time as a bolt of lightning was striking the ground exactly where Pettigrew had been standing a moment earlier. Aidan cried out, Ron fell back with a gasp, his arms flying up to cover his eyes from the blast, and McNair stumbled backwards, with a grunt, his wand still clutched in his fingers, but the rest of the curse never leaving his lips.

Snape was spinning around to face McNair, Ron was picking himself up and seemed to have already started reciting a rather long-winded incantation, Pettigrew re-apparated behind Hermione, and Ireson and Nott were both advancing on Aidan´s figure, slumped down on his knees, and apparently stunned from Ireson´s last curse when, suddenly, three things happened in quick succession, all of which had the combined effect of distracting everyone from everyone else.

With another unworldly whoosh and a flash of light, the Hogwarts portal opened, making Pettigrew, Ireson and Nott spin around to stare at it in stunned surprise.

Two Dementors apparated into the clearing and, something enormous, made of dark, moist earth, gravel and rock rose up out of the ground.

* * *

George and Fred stared, for a moment, at the gleaming blue portal through which Raveneye had just disappeared, and then turned to look at each other.

`How long do you reckon it´s going to take us to go up to Dumbledore´s office and give him this?´ George asked.

`Five, ten minutes? That is if he´s there.´

`Right,´ George said and then looked back at the open portal.

`Are you thinking what I´m thinking?´ Fred inquired tentatively.

`I don´t know. Are you thinking that there must be some Floo powder somewhere in this office?´

`Uh-huh.´

`Then don´t just stand there! Start looking for it!´

Fred ran over to one side of the fireplace, and George to the other.

`And then what?´ Fred asked as he rummaged, frantically, through everything he could get his hands on.

`We send the note through, of course! Save bundles of time, which we can then use to do something actually useful. Like helping!´

`Eureka!´ Fred cried suddenly, grabbing an elaborate, small container, and prying the lid open.

* * *

The first thing Iris saw, as she stepped through the portal, was Pettigrew, wand in hand, standing several feet behind Hermione. There were other things happening around her, she knew, that she could only get glimpses of through her peripheral vision, but she didn´t allow herself to think about it. She attacked the first threat she saw, and that was Pettigrew.

`Expelliarmus,´ she called quickly, as two dark grey shadows, appeared with a pop somewhere off to her left. The part of her mind that didn´t require her cooperation for it to function, registered the presence of Dementors. As Pettigrew went flying, again, his wand landing almost ten yards away from him, she couldn´t avoid noticing what was now coming up, out of the earth. It grabbed her attention as surely as if it had physically gripped her hand. A huge, vaguely humanoid figure made of soil, and gravel, and blades of pale, wintry grass, it turned slowly, and the ground beneath her feet shivered.

`Bloody hell!´ she heard someone gasp, but she didn´t even turn to see who it was. She couldn´t tear her eyes away from the Earth Elemental, for she, if no one else, knew what it was. The Elemental seemed to be looking at Ron, even though it was very hard to tell through what it was performing that function. It lacked any discernible features, let alone eyes; yet, nevertheless, the impression was unmistakeable. Ron raised his wand and pointed at Pettigrew, who was, even then, trying to scramble to his feet.

The earth shuddered violently as the Elemental turned again and moved towards its target. Against all expectation, its movements were not the slow, lumbering kind a creature of this size, made of rock and heavy soil should have been limited to. Its speed was as shocking as its appearance. Its shape changing as it sped away, the earth rippling into new limbs with every step, like the furrows cut into the soil by an earthquake, it looked as if it was rising from the ground anew every time.

Pettigrew screamed.

And it was that scream that broke the spell that had been holding everyone´s attention captive.

Pettigrew threw up his silver arm to protect himself, whilst desperately trying to scramble away from the creature. Iris looked around her properly, for the first time, and Aidan Disapparated. from between Ireson´s and Nott´s wands -those few seconds the Elemental had granted him having been enough for him to recover his bearings.

Ireson cursed out loud, swivelling quickly around, trying to locate Aidan.

`Get the kids out of here!!´ Snape screamed at Iris, as two more Dementors apparated and began gliding, just behind the first two, towards the fray. Iris was willing to wager money on the fact that these four were the last surviving Dementors from the Hogwarts attack.

Desperately, she tried to keep track of where everyone that posed a potential threat was, while she raised her wand against Nott.

`Hermione!´ she shouted, seeing the Dementors looming ever closer. `Get behind me! -Caecus fieri!´ she cried in the end, her wand pointing just over Hermione´s head. Hermione instinctively ducked, but nothing flashed, or exploded or even went by her. Nott´s roar of anger and despair told her that something unpleasant had happened to him, nevertheless. She turned, and saw him clawing at his eyes. Open wide, and staring, they seemed unable to focus. He had been struck blind.

With one opponent down, at least temporarily, Iris glanced around her, taking stock of the situation anew. Pettigrew was still grappling with the Elemental, while at the same time he was trying to summon his wand, the enormous power of his silver arm being the only reason he was still alive. Ron seemed to have the Elemental well under control so that corner, for now, was secure. Briefly, the thought occurred to her that she might have created a monster in Ron, literally, but she dismissed it on the grounds that the monster was on their side right now and that was all she needed to know.

Faintly, she registered Nott´s voice yelling `Kill the bitch!´, but she had four Dementors to deal with and, unless she saw someone actually pointing a wand at her or the kids, she was not going to bother with him.

`Expecto Patronum!´ she cried and a silver angel burst forth from the tip of her wand. In a flurry of silver, it descended on the nearest Dementor.

`Expecto Patronum!´ two more voices cried in chorus all of a sudden, and two identical, silver knights, in full plate armour, visors lowered and hiding their faces materialised, and flew into battle.

`Will someone close that bloody portal?!´ Ireson was screaming, as he saw George and Fred step through the gateway and deploy their newly acquired patroni.

Two of the four Dementors crumpled into nothing more than empty grey shrouds under the sudden onslaught, Ireson apparated behind Aidan, and Nott recovered his sight -or some of it. A blast aimed at Ron missed him by about five yards, but the force of it knocked him to the ground, shattering his concentration. The Elemental hesitated.

`Accio!´ Pettigrew screeched and his wand flew into his hand.

`Aidan!´ Iris yelled in warning, and banished her patronum. She counted on Snape having taught the twins well. They should be able to manage the two remaining Dementors. Right now she needed her wand for other things.

`Eici Elementum!´ Pettigrew cried and the Elemental froze. Slowly, it began crumpling, like a sand castle, back into the ground.

`Fulgur deleo!´ Iris shouted and a lightning bolt struck Nott squarely in the chest. He didn´t even have the chance to scream; he was dead before he hit the ground.

`Get the kids out of here!´ Snape roared again. `All of them!´

Seeing the last two Dementors vanish into nothingness, Iris seized her chance.

`George, Fred, grab Hermione!´ she screamed. `Quickly Ron!! Run!´ she added and, as she turned to him, she saw Pettigrew, on his feet, wand aimed at the portal. She whipped her wand round. `Stupefy!´ she cried, but Pettigrew had seen her and where he had been standing there was now a scruffy, brown rat, scurrying away in the undergrowth.

`Shit!´ Iris cursed. She´d lost him. At least the twins had seized Hermione, physically, and were hauling her towards the portal, she consoled herself. Fred, with one leg already in its blue waters, was shouting to Ron to run and beckoning to him, but Ron had stopped running. Seeing Pettigrew transfigure and disappear into the undergrowth, he hesitated.

`Ron, go!´ Iris shouted. `Go, both of you, go!´ she urged the twins and then Pettigrew materialized again; behind Ron, silver hand round Ron´s neck, wand raised and pointing at the back of his head.

Hermione screamed and struggled to free herself from the twins´ grasp.

`Everyone stop exactly where you are, or I break his neck!´ Pettigrew screeched.

Iris froze; her eyes still on the portal, locked with the twins´ gaze.

`Go,´ she mouthed silently. `Go!´

The twins hesitated for a second, and then, with Hermione kicking and screaming, dove through the portal.

`FUCK!! I said don´t move!´ Pettigrew yelled, beside himself with anger. He swung his wand at the portal, and this time, no one moved. `Claude Porta!´ he cried and the portal vanished.

Iris´s eyes darted to Snape. He was standing stock-still, glaring at Pettigrew with such fury, his eyes seemed like bottomless, dark caverns of hatred, lips pale and drawn tight into nothing more than a faintly quivering line of loathing. From somewhere behind her, she heard Ireson snigger. Aidan too, off to her right, had frozen to the spot. McNair smirked. Snape´s eyes flickered over to her and she held his gaze meaningfully for a moment, before closing her eyes. His brow creased imperceptibly as her lips started moving, silently. What was she doing?

`This is quite enough. This is not King´s Cross Station! A day´s, no, months´ worth of work wasted, but there are just too many people that know about this gateway now. Fortunately, it is much easier to take down than to set up,´ Pettigrew said and raised his wand again. `Intercludere Porta,´ he added. There was a faint flash of blue light round the edges of where the portal used to be, and then nothing. `There. Gone. Now no more unexpected visitors are going to come through there anymore, nor is anyone else leaving that way, either. Now, we are all going to sit here, nice and quietly, and wait for Lord Voldemort, and if anyone so much as twitches a muscle, Ron here gets it... Is that cl-...´ His voice trailed off and his brow furrowed in puzzlement. He cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something faint and far away. It was like the distant roar of an enormous waterfall, only it was coming rapidly closer. Pettigrew´s eyes flew to Iris, but she was standing perfectly immobile, head slightly lowered, arms by her sides. As the roar became louder, his eyes darted to Snape. He too was standing quietly still, but was staring very intently at something behind Pettigrew, the faintest impression of a smirk teasing the gleam in his eyes. With the sound of rushing water almost upon them, deafening in its roar, Pettigrew spun round just in time to see what looked like a tidal wave rising up over the edge of the cliff. Its foaming white crest was the size of small, three-story house and gave the uncanny impression of a long white mane of hair. The wave peaked and as it started coming crashing down in eerie slow motion, the frothing foam forming its head cascaded into a very distinct set of male features with streaming white beard and long wild hair. Then it acquired a torso, its shapes surging and spilling into each other, flowing in and out of focus, and with a heart-stopping rush of sound, a liquid arm shot out of the mass of water, plucked Pettigrew off the ground and disappeared with him, screaming, back over the edge of the cliff.

Snape wished he could afford a few moments to relish the stunned silence emanating very loudly from McNair and Ireson, and to admire again -in retrospect -that textbook act of evocation that Iris had pulled off without so much as flicking the tip of her wand. But he knew that they would only have the advantage for another two seconds, and he had to put those two seconds to good use. Even before the Water Elemental had disappeared over the edge of the cliff, Snape was spinning around, while Iris was turning and running towards Ron.

Flatly, Snape spoke the incantation and flicked his wand, with almost dismissive ease. McNair didn´t see him until it was too late. He was picked off his feet and hurled through the air as if struck by a speeding train. He landed on the enormous boulder standing by where the portal used to be with such force that Iris heard the sickening crack of his scull splitting. Almost simultaneously, out of the corner of her eye, she saw what looked like a silver dart streak by her line of sight and Aidan drop to the ground. With a gasp, she grabbed Ron, physically shoving him behind her, and spun around.

Aidan was struggling to his knees, a large silver dagger sticking out of his shoulder blade. Her eyes darted over to Ireson only to see a second, equally large dagger hovering in mid-air in front of him, posed and ready to fly in her direction. Snape, wand already raised and pointing straight at Ireson, forced himself to stop. Instinct borne of experience told him that Ireson could send that dagger flying and defend himself at the same time. He had seen Ireson´s daggers before. They were his pet trick. Conjured out of thin air, he had perfected that particular conjuration to such an extent that the daggers were semi-sentient. Once shown a target, they didn´t need to be controlled to acquire it, only released; and shield charms couldn´t stop them. They were both magical and physical items at the same time. They just went straight through most spell barriers. The only way to stop them was by being quick enough to deflect them, and that wasn´t easy, since they flew with roughly the speed of an arrow. Consequently, Snape, with an immense show of willpower, was forced to control his tendency to just blast Ireson into oblivion and think, instead.

`Now, you don´t want to try that, Snape, do you?´ Ireson sneered calmly. `So why don´t you just lower that wand of yours, hey? You know what these babies can do, don´t you? That´s a good boy!´

Teeth clenched tight and knuckles white with barely contained rage, Snape slowly lowered his wand.

`Now, one of you two is going to get the killing curse, the other is going to get the dagger -I haven´t yet decided who´s going to get what,´ Ireson smirked, and extended his free hand, casually, in Aidan´s direction. The dagger in Aidan´s shoulder wrenched itself out of his back, and darted back to hover in front of Ireson while Aidan gasped, sharply, and fell forward on all fours. `Actually, there´s two daggers now. Simply infinite possibilities spring to mind.´

`I will tear your heart out with my bare hands, you depraved maniac!´ Aidan growled in enraged agony.

`Aidan don´t!´ Iris called out sharply. What was he trying to do, commit suicide?

Ireson looked from Iris, to Aidan and back again, a disgusting smirk twisting his thin lips.

`So, you two know each other then? Not that that´s much of a surprise after today. You care for the little runt, bitch? Are you doing them both then? Do they know you are doing them both, or is that news to you, Severus?... Let me see... maybe I should get rid of these two idiots first, and then have some fun with you myself, before I kill you, you little whore. The kid can watch. Maybe he´ll learn something.´

Ron started struggling, furiously, behind Iris, but somehow, she managed to hold him back. A pale blue vein on Snape´s temple began throbbing and a small muscle above his lips twitched -once -while his long fingers tightened round his wand´s smooth, dark oak-wood.

Ireson laughed.

`Oh, this is beautiful!´ he sighed between chuckles and then, suddenly, flicked his wrist.

For Iris, time, all of a sudden, came to a grinding halt. Everything seemed to happen in agonising slow motion. The two daggers sped forward still clearly visible to her, strangely, despite their speed. She whirled round instinctively, pulling Ron to her and bending over him, using her body as a shield; and Ireson turned his wand on Snape.

`AVADA KEDAVRA!´

`NO!!´ she heard herself screaming.

Green light flashed and it seemed to take forever, blinding her for minutes on end. When the green glare faded and she could finally see again, Snape wasn´t where he had been a second earlier. As she spun round once more, she saw that he was now standing, a few yards in front of her and Ron, his wand having already traced a large arc of banishment, a single, silver dagger speeding away from him and heading straight for Ireson. With an enraged cry, Ireson tried to deflect it, but only managed to make it swerve slightly. The dagger plunged, up to its hilt, into his right shoulder and, with a gasp, Ireson´s wand slipped from his grasp. While Ireson staggered backwards, his left hand flying instinctively up to clutch the dagger in his shoulder, there was a second of buzzing, crackling silence that seemed to stretch out unnaturally into endless minutes.

And then, Snape fell to his knees.

For a moment, the only sound she could hear was the pounding of her own heart in her ears.

`No!´ she breathed again without even realising it.

She saw his wand slip from his fingers and then, slowly, silently, he started crumpling to the ground. Until she found herself beside him, she hadn´t even realised that she had moved. He slumped into her arms, his black hair spilling over her shoulder like an ink stain, and suddenly, with an almost audible click, time went back to normal, flying swiftly, relentlessly forward. Her breath caught in her throat and her stomach contracted painfully with a gut-wrenching tug. She could now see his left hand gripping, weakly, the second silver dagger embedded in his midsection, just under his diaphragm. His white fingers, clutching its hilt, were already dyed a gleaming, sleek red, and there was blood streaming from his parted lips. With her heart now trying to beat its way, frenziedly, out of her chest, she shifted her arm slightly in an effort to support his head.

`Ron!´ she called softly, as she gently began lowering Snape down to the ground, searching his gaze for recognition and the fire that always burned in the depths of its darkness as she still cradled his head in her hand. His eyes were glazed and barely focused, his pupils dilated, expanding into large pools of absolute blackness as consciousness slowly slipped away from him. She could see him fighting it, fiercely, with everything he had, but she knew he couldn´t win.

`Ron, I need a circle; quickly,´ she whispered. `A good one Ron. Try to get the perimeter as close to the bastard as possible. You have five seconds!´

Ron, shaking slightly, nodded and, pulling himself together with reserves of willpower he never knew he had, began whispering a tremulous incantation while Iris, fingers dripping crimson now too, carefully stroked a black strand of hair away from Snape´s eyes.

`I wish you wouldn´t keep doing that!´ she whispered to him quietly, with a wan smile. `Stay with me, now, you hear? Don´t you dare give up on me! We´re going home; and besides, we still need you. I...´ she let the rest of the sentence trail off and gently touched his face with the very edges of her fingertips instead. Seeing his gaze focus on her and the usual fire illuminate the depths of his eyes for a few moments, she smiled at him again. For a while his gaze was as penetrating as she had ever known it to be, slicing right through her scull, trying to pluck the thoughts, carefully, one by one, out from her head. For the first time, she allowed the prying fingers of his insight inside her mind and found that he responded in kind. The cold, guarded darkness behind his eyes opened up and let her in; for a moment, only, no more. Then, a rasping gasp that only she heard escaped his lips, and a weak tremor coursed through his body. The spark of lucidity in his eyes flickered and began fading slowly, until it died utterly, leaving behind nothing but darkness. His eyelids fluttered, once, and slowly lowered over unseeing, black eyes that rolled back in their sockets, before heavy black lashes closed over them. She saw his hand slip from the dagger´s hilt and felt his body going limp in her arms, his head rolling lifelessly to one side and, for a moment, she was sure that her heart was going to implode. The sudden heart-stopping pain that tore at her diaphragm forced a gasp to rise unbidden into her lungs which she had to stifle.

`Awww! How touching!´ Ireson sneered, and instantly her despair was transfigured into vicious, cold determination and the pain into hatred. Carefully, she lowered Snape´s head to the ground, and looked up at Ireson. Her left hand was still resting on Snape´s chest, feeling the warm sticky blood seeping out onto her palm and the faint, rapid beating under her fingers of his heart trying to compensate for the blood loss. She concentrated on those two sensations, of the life spilling, slowly but steadily, from him, and the weak, throbbing pulse, both of which she relied on for focus. She didn´t need to use a wand for this now; she had everything she needed, literally, at the edge of her fingertips. She would do this the old-fashioned way.

Ireson had pulled the dagger out of his shoulder, retrieved his wand and had now dragged Aidan to his feet; wand pointing at Aidan´s throat.

`Now, you can Disapparate if you want to, bitch, but, if you do that, the little runt gets it; and believe me. At this range, I won´t miss, this time. Besides, the brat gets to stay behind too if you Disapparate, isn´t that so? So, we´re all going to sit here, nice and quietly, and wait for Lord Voldemort to arrive, which, by my calculations, he should be doing any minute now. And then, you´re going to wish you had Disapparated. You´d also better pray that Snape is dead, because, believe me, it´s going to be a kinder fate than the one that awaits him if he´s still alive when Lord Voldemort arrives -not that he deserves anything of the kind, mind you!´

`Hurry up Ron,´ Iris said calmly, and almost before she had finished speaking, a faint, circular flash of light appeared momentarily on the ground around them, its edges mere inches away from Ireson´s feet.

`Done,´ Ron breathed.

`Now, whatever happens, don´t be scared. Whatever you see, it won´t hurt you,´ Iris whispered to Ron so quietly he had to struggle to hear her.

`What are you two conspiring about?´ Ireson growled suspiciously. He took a step forward and realised that he couldn´t cross a quite invisible barrier that hadn´t been there a moment ago. Startled and furious he started screaming.

`What have you done, you insane bitch?! You think a circle of containment is going to stop me? You think it will stop spells coming in?´

`Ron, if you think he´s going to use the killing curse on Aidan, stupefy him.´

`Aidan?!´

`Yes, he´ll drop to ground and force that bastard to re-focus and re-aim. By that time, I should be ready. Ok?´

Ron nodded, mutely.

Iris took a deep breath and then, closing her eyes, began whispering a long, strange invocation in a language Ron had never heard before and couldn´t even begin to guess its meaning. It was probably better that way, too. If he had known what Iris had started doing, he wouldn´t have been as calm as he seemed to be.

`Are you trying to get this guy killed?!´ Ireson screamed furiously, certain that she was obviously up to something, but thrown by the fact that she wasn´t using her wand. She ignored him and kept going. The sky was now starting to grow strangely dark, and a cold, sharp wind was picking up.

`Well, that´s it. She doesn´t care for you. You can die in the comfort of that knowledge,´ Ireson snarled calmly at Aidan, and raised his wand. Ron did the same.

`Aved-´

`Stupefy!´ Ron screamed and Aidan dropped to the ground like a stone.

Never finishing the rest of the curse, Ireson whirled around to face Ron in shocked disbelief.

`Why you little...´ he began, but never finished the rest of that sentence either, because it was at that point that he realised that the sky had become so dark it could have been twilight, and there were angry looking, enormous, rolling clouds overhead, that hadn´t been there a moment ago. And then the crowing began; literally hundreds of crows started appearing around them, as if out of nowhere, fluttering and cawing wildly, landing on every available branch and rock around them... and all were looking directly at him.

Suddenly, Iris dropped to the ground -beside Snape -and with a whooshing sound that made the hairs on the back of Ron´s neck prickle, and a flash of light that strangely seemed black she gasped, her body going rigid for a moment, and then she fell limply back to the ground again. Where there was nothing but air before, in the middle of the circle, there was now what looked like a semi-solid apparition, hovering about a foot from the ground. It was a woman, with wild, black hair cascading all the way down to her thighs, and there was something strangely familiar about her face -in an uncanny way that you couldn´t quite put your finger on. Her face was ageless, of beauty practically beyond comprehension, and so terrifying to behold it made Dementors seem like good-natured clowns. Her eyes were literally bottomless, and black like the abyss. In fact, they were the Abyss. Her skin was so white, only the pallor of death compared. In her hand, she held two spears, dripping with semi-substantial blood and, over her black, war-torn gown she wore a breastplate, chinked and dented and splattered with blood. Because she was War, and she was Death: She was The Morrigan.

Slowly, she levitated down to the ground, and as soon as her feet touched the earth, everything died. Blades of grass, flowers, insects, the earth itself turned black, as if it had been scorched. Everything seemed to perish, instantly. Yet, when she stepped away again, new crows were born, out of the ground, out of nothing, immediately fluttering away to join their kindred in the surrounding trees.

She stood in the middle of the circle for a while, turning slowly to survey the scene around her. As her eyes fell on Ron, he felt his entire body grow cold, and his hairs stand on end. He cowered away from her, primordial instinct, taking over. And then he heard her speak to him, clearly, in his mind.

`You need not fear me. I came, because I was summoned. I came, because I chose to. I share my daughter´s spirit; that is how I take on this form that you can comprehend. Warriors that can gaze into the eyes of death and yet hold their ground, need not fear me.´

She turned away from Ron and looked down at Iris and Snape. Then she turned, slowly, and fixed Ireson with her gaze. Without even realising that he was shaking uncontrollably, he staggered a few steps away from the circle.

`You are the reason I am here,´ the voice spoke to his mind. `You kill, mindlessly, indiscriminately; you have no respect for life -or death. You have no respect for Me. Death is not indiscriminate, or mindless. That is why you are going to die. I was not called here to kill. I was called here to protect. But death has a mind of her own. You deserve death. You need to learn what The Morrigan is.´

`But... but, you... you can´t leave the circle!´ Ireson stammered, in desperation, clutching at the last shreds of reason that remained in his head. Morrigan laughed. Ron shuddered, and his skin crawled, while Ireson, whimpering, staggered back from the circle, even further.

`I don´t need to leave the circle, you pathetic worm,´ she said, with the laughter still resounding in her voice, and she stamped her foot on the ground once. A black, scorched trail slithered like lightning across the earth, under the circle and exploded under Ireson´s feet, sending him flying into the air and crashing to the ground almost twenty yards away.

`My crows can kill you, if I so choose. Simply my voice can kill you, you miserable excuse for a mortal. Which do you prefer? I grant you the boon of choosing the way you are going to die.´ The crows, hundreds of them, in the trees, fluttered restlessly, as if preparing to be called into action.

`No,´ Ireson stammered, helplessly trembling. `No, please!´

`There is no pleading with me; and there is no bargaining. Fate decides, War reaps and Death collects its due. I am all Three: I am Fate, I am War, and I am Death.´

She turned, leaving one of her spears standing perfectly upright, in mid air, and glided over to Snape. She leaned down, Ron cowering with a stifled whimper away from her again, and dipped her right hand in Snape´s blood. With blood dripping from her fingers and leaving a red trail behind her, she glided back to her spear. There, she smeared the blood liberally over the wooden shaft and, instantly, young vignettes sprung forth from the wood, as it burst back into life and vibrant green ivy grew, curling all around the spear shaft. Staring at Ireson fixedly with unblinking eyes, she reached out and grasped her spear in her hand again, and instantly, the ivy withered, turned black and disintegrated into dust that was carried away in the cold wind. With a grotesque smile, she raised her hand and licked the remaining blood off her fingers with relish.

`Come hither,´ she breathed softly, and Ron knew, with a certainty that defied all logic, that she had just accepted a sacrifice; a blood sacrifice, offered for services that were about to be rendered. He felt every single hair on his body stand on end and a freezing shiver coursed down his spine while Ireson started moving forward as if compelled to by an invisible force. He seemed to be fighting himself every inch of the way, whimpering and struggling, but to no avail. As he reached the edge of the circle, Morrigan glided forward to meet him. Trembling violently, and still whimpering, he stood there, unable to move, facing the Goddess.

`You might come back -maybe as a worm... It´s not up to me. The Hag´s cauldron is hers to do with as she wishes. I will simply deliver your life to her,´ she said into his mind, and then opened her mouth.

The sound that came out of it hit Ireson squarely, and Ron could actually see the cone of quivering sound waves hurling him back almost twenty feet. It was a sound like nothing Ron had ever heard; it was every sound in the universe, all rolled into one; it spanned every audible -and inaudible -register, from the lowest harmonics that are nothing more than vibration, to the highest pitched shriek. It was a physical entity in itself: it was the universe -and it was the most beautiful thing Ron had ever experienced, and at the same time, the most terrifying and the most painful. He could feel the earth beneath him vibrating fiercely, his own heart seemed as if it was about to explode and he could no longer breathe; his lungs seemed about to collapse. As he doubled over and gasped, clutching at his chest, he saw a trickle of blood seeping from Iris´s nostrils and saw Ireson grasping at his chest in a silent scream, blood flowing from his ears and his nose. And then it suddenly all stopped. The silence was so absolute, so complete it felt as if the universe hadn´t even been created yet.

Ron ventured to look up at Morrigan and he saw her turning her back slowly, deliberately, on Ireson´s still writhing figure. As she did so, every crow around them took flight, in a horrifying explosion of fluttering, screeching and crowing that shattered the primordial silence. Several hundred of them descended in a fierce blur on Ireson, who looked up and screamed. The scream was short lived. With a sudden high pitched shriek and a blood-curdling gurgle it was cut short. Ron looked away in horror and never looked back up again in that direction.

It was easy to not do so, because Morrigan was speaking to him again.

`I have a feeling I will be seeing much more of you in the future, young wizard. If I decide to choose you, I may have to fight Merlin for you, but I think I will win. You are still closer to my domain than to his -like they are,´ she said and pointed at Iris´s and Snape´s still figures. `They belong to me. I have chosen them, and they have chosen me. And in the end, I believe that so will you. Now, revive my host. My work here is done. I must leave.´

Ron swallowed quietly and nodded. He pointed a shaky wand at Iris and whispered `Enervate.´

Iris gasped, there was another silent flash of black light and Morrigan vanished. Ron looked around and realised that all the crows were flying off too while Iris gasped again, rolled over to her side and brought her knees up to her chest, groaning painfully. Then she opened her eyes and saw Ireson´s mangled, mutilated form lying twenty yards away. Immediately, she rolled onto her back, and gazed up at the last few crows that were still visible as they were flying away.

`She came,´ Iris whispered to herself, in a mixture of triumph and disbelief. `She came.´

`Are you ok?´ Ron asked worriedly and moved over to her.

`Yes, I think... You?´

`Scared out of my mind, but ok, I think.´

`We need to get out of here, Ron. Quickly, take the circle down, and enervate Aidan,´ Iris panted, and started struggling up to her knees with another groan. She felt as if the life had been sucked out of her and then she had been run over by a lorry for good measure -one of the many good reasons why what she had just done wasn´t the sort of thing one attempted lightly, or often.

Ron nodded and went to do as he was told, while Iris immediately bent over Snape again, stroking his hair back, and checking for a pulse on his throat. It was faint, and thready, but it was still there. Her stomach contracted with a sort of crushing relief that couldn´t quite shake off a debilitating sense of dismay. She busied herself with summoning and pocketing his wand, instead of thinking agonisingly about all the things she could do, if only she had the time, to stop the blood that she could see gathering in a pool on the ground beside him, soaking the soil and staining the wintry grass red. She pushed her hair away from her eyes, without noticing that her fingers left a bright crimson smudge on her cheek, and did the only thing she could. She laid her hands carefully around the dagger, and pressed down firmly. She couldn´t make it stop, but she could at least slow it down.

`Damn, woman, what did you do?´ she heard Aidan groan, behind her. `I can´t believe you had the kid stupefy me!´

`Would you rather be dead?´ she said and then turned to look at him. `You need help,´ she said more gently. `You´re bleeding a lot.´

`I´m alright. I think...´ he staggered over to her with Ron walking along beside him, as if he was afraid Aidan would drop, any minute now. `Is he dead?´ Aidan asked, looking down at Snape.

`Not yet,´ said Iris flatly. `But we have to get back quickly. You need looking to, also, and Voldemort is going to show up here any minute. Accio portkey!´ she added, lifting one bloodied hand, and a piece of chalk flew out of Snape´s pocket and into her fingers. She stared at it in bewilderment, for a moment. Chalk? Oh well, she didn´t have the time right now to dwell on Dumbledore´s peculiarities.

`I´m not going with you. Take the kid and Snape and just leave. I can´t believe you didn´t tell me about him, by the way... but, I kind of see why.´

Iris spun round in horror.

`What´d you mean you´re not going with us? You can´t stay here. You want Voldemort to find you in the midst of this massacre? He´s going to kill you!´

`Don´t worry. I know what I´m going to tell him. Just stop arguing and leave, will you? I´ll try and cover for Snape too. If he dies, it won´t really make much difference, so I suggest you just take him back to Hogwarts now, while he´s still got a chance. Oh, shit...´ Aidan gasped, suddenly, in pain, and dropped to his knees.

`You can´t stay here! You need help!´ Iris cried in infuriated despair. `Ron, come here!´ she ordered, and Ron immediately obeyed. `Take this,´ she said, handing him the portkey and picking up her wand instead. `If anything happens, you will take Severus and leave, instantly. That´s an order! All you need to do is say the word "Hogwarts" and this will take you there.´

Ron looked up at her in surprise, and then nodded mutely.

`Just go! For the love of Merlin, just go!´ Aidan groaned dismally, in exasperation.

Iris, determined to even resort to physical force, in an effort to take him with her, made as if to rise and go to him. He was still on his knees and seemed unable to get up again, and she was simply not going to leave him there to bleed to death -if he was lucky -or to be questioned by Voldemort, if he was not. Before she had the chance to move, a faint pop, followed by another made her stop short. Voldemort and Malfoy apparated into the clearing, immediately behind Aidan.

Instantly, Aidan raised his wand at Iris, looking her straight in the eye, calmly. He only paused for a fraction of a second, giving her the chance to prepare.

`Ava-´

`Stupefy!´ Iris cried, wand pointing back at Aidan, her free hand still clutching Snape´s chest.

`Hogwarts!´ shouted Ron grimly, grasping the portkey in one hand and Iris´s arm with the other.

As the three of them vanished, Aidan crumpled to the ground at Voldemort´s feet.