Replay

Replay

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Six

Visibility

Harry awoke with a start. He'd fallen asleep in the bedroom armchair again while watching The Right Stuff on a very small television Miss Harrison kept on top of a chest of drawers. Staying in the bedroom seemed like the safest thing to do, so that he might have enough warning when she entered the house and could correct any problems with the Invisibility Cloak hiding him adequately. (And he could turn off the television. It was turned down far too low to be heard in the front hall; he'd run down and tried listening very hard for it.)

Before settling down to watch the film, he had already taken advantage of her being out of the house to use her shower and do some laundry (although he wasn't certain trainers were supposed to go in the dryer--they'd made quite a lot of noise) and the only problem he still had was the gnawing hunger inside his stomach. As there was very little food in the kitchen, he was worried that anything that went missing would be easily noticed. He had had some practice with this, however, over the years he'd lived with the Dursleys and had found it necessary to scavenge for food after Dudley had eaten about seventy percent of the dinner and his aunt and uncle about twenty-five percent, leaving him with almost nothing. He finally settled on eating two biscuits from an open packet, taking three very small tomatoes from a bag in the fridge that had at least two dozen remaining, and he also ate some of the bread that Miss Harrison and her friend had been picking at the previous evening, spread with what seemed to be margarine, only a little greasier. He drank water from the tap instead of reducing her already-small supply of milk and orange juice even further. A cup of tea would have been nice, but he found that she had only two tea bags left, so she would have noticed one going missing.

The other items she had purchased the previous evening were things he didn't dare touch either: an unopened box of spaghetti, a jar of pesto, a packet of uncooked rice that came with some Indian spices, and what seemed to be a whole chicken wrapped in butcher's paper. He also found an onion, a lemon and three potatoes. There was no hope of eating any of those things without raising the alarm. (And he didn't fancy eating an onion or a lemon anyway, let alone taking the time to cook chicken or potatoes.) There was some old takeaway curry in the fridge, but Harry's nose wrinkled up when he opened it; Miss Harrison hadn't eaten it soon enough and it was too far gone now for human consumption. Harry had to stop himself from binning it; she'd remember throwing it out, very likely. Fighting his natural instincts, he returned the curry to the fridge, shuddering.

He had also spent a great deal of time carefully cleaning up after himself so that not a crumb remained to betray his activities. He thoroughly cleaned the shower, not to mention all of the other areas of the bathroom he'd used. (He ended up brushing his teeth by putting some toothpaste on his finger after washing his hands.) All in all, he was very pleased with himself for leaving her house so clean. Aunt Petunia could have eaten off the kitchen floor. He also checked Mrs Figg's house regularly, but there was no change over there that he could see.

The Aurors remained stationed at Mrs Figg's front and back doors, and he could see others through the windows of the house. Harry had initially wondered whether Muggles would notice this and find it strange, but when he observed neighbours passing Mrs Figg's home the presence of the wizards did not seem to register on them at all. Anti-Muggle charms, he thought.

At last he'd tired of his vigil and retired to the armchair after quietly going through the various options available on the television. His eyes felt very much like they wanted to close, but he tried to focus on the film to stay awake. The bed looked very inviting and he'd still be able to see the small television, but he tried to put that out of his mind as he watched test pilots fly very fast and astronauts float in space in their rockets... God, this is boring, he'd thought more than once, but everything else on the telly had seemed even more sleep-inducing or too noisy, so he was rather stuck. He still wished he could have used one of the spare rooms to just sleep quietly, but he didn't dare open any of the other doors again; there was no telling what sort of chain reaction might be set off if he did.

He heard Miss Harrison moving around downstairs now. Shaking himself and blinking, trying to bring the world back into focus, he leapt across to the television and turned it off, putting his hand on the top and hoping that she wouldn't do the same when she came upstairs and notice that it was still warm. He thought about what to do and decided this time to remain on the upper floor; unless she was going to change her clothes she'd be unlikely to enter her bedroom immediately and he could stay out of her way far more effectively than if he was traipsing around the kitchen and living-room, especially if Pip was back as well. He was still getting the hang of lurking in her house unseen and was formulating his strategy as he went along.

He crept down the hall to the top of the stairs so he could hear what they were saying, in case he needed to be worried for some reason. He hoped Miss Harrison had got good prices for the things she'd sold, especially the stereoscope (whatever that was). He remembered her crying on Pip's shoulder again, talking about the injustice her father had suffered, the injustice that could never be rectified now that he was dead. The thought made his throat grow tight again and he couldn't help picturing Sirius the first time he'd met him, his long matted hair and starved-looking face. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair....

"Three thousand five hundred!" he could hear Pip saying incredulously when he had moved within range. "You had a desk in your house worth three thousand five hundred pounds!"

Tilda Harrison was giggling, something Harry had never heard her do. "I know! And I wouldn't have made the sale if it weren't for the stereoscope! Here's to my dad!"

He heard the clinking of glasses and bent over to see into the living-room a little better. Tilda had evidently opened some wine; they drank now, both still smiling, and Harry felt rather pleased with himself as well. Here's to the invisible wizard in your house, he thought, grinning, wondering how the stereoscope had helped her to sell the desk.

After she finished her wine (in what looked like one gulp) Pip said, "Well, I must be off. I have to shower and dress. I'll be back here in forty-five minutes and then we're off to London!" Harry had forgotten about the clubbing.

Tilda sighed. "Yes, yes, I'll be ready."

"You shower, too! And put on something gorgeous. But not too gorgeous. Can't have you showing me up," she said, grinning. Tilda laughed.

"As if that would be possible," she said generously.

"Wear the black mini and that red blouse," Pip advised her as she moved toward the door.

"Black and red at this time of year?" Tilda said, wrinkling her nose. "I'll find something, never fear. See you soon."

Then Pip was gone and Harry was going to attempt to go downstairs, but suddenly she was ascending the stairs, so he moved off into the bedroom again. When she entered the room, he had to admit, she did look rather grimy from her day out. She put a small white plastic bag on the bedside table, kicked off her trainers and undressed quickly down to her underwear. Harry forgot this time that he shouldn't be watching her do this; it was interesting to see how a woman behaved when she was alone but didn't know she wasn't really alone. She threw the dirty clothes into a laundry basket in the corner and padded into the bathroom carrying her blue dressing gown.

Harry sat in the chair again, forgetting that he had planned to go downstairs. When she emerged from the bath in her dressing gown her hair was already dry, hanging straight and loose down to the middle of her back this time, making her resemble Luna Lovegood more than ever. She strode to her wardrobe, not two feet from Harry, and opened the doors, making dissatisfied noises as she surveyed her options.

Harry was starting to fall asleep again and once, when he jerked himself awake, he hoped that he hadn't been snoring. Tilda Harrison, however, seemed to be oblivious. Her bed was covered in a multitude of clothes jumbled this way and that as she moved skirts and blouses together, then apart again, making grunting noises and every so often saying, "Hmm...maybe...."

Then he looked down and realised that she'd actually thrown some clothes over him without realising that they weren't sitting on the chair quite right, as they were on top of an invisible person. A silvery blue dress started to slide off the slick Invisibility Cloak when he shifted slightly. He mentally swore as it continued its way downward, puddling on the floor. He sat still, frozen stiff for fear that she would discover him. His heart was beating very fast as she turned and walked toward him, bending over to pick up the fallen dress.

"Hmm. Maybe I was too hasty about this one...."

She turned to the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door and held the dress to her body, turning to get the effect. If it weren't for the fact that it didn't make her invisible, Harry would have sworn that it was made of the same material as his Cloak; it caught the light in the same way his Cloak did when no one was wearing it, and had the same watery sheen to it.

She nodded, having made her decision, and, leaving the other clothes piled haphazardly on the bed (and on Harry), began to dress at last. Harry had had every intention of shutting his eyes tightly when she got around to doing this (she'd shut the bedroom door again, making him wish he'd gone downstairs after all while she was showering), but instead found himself unable to tear his eyes away, thinking only, Bloody hell....

When she was dressed and turning before the mirror, her mouth twisting as though she was uncertain still of her choice, Harry couldn't help but wonder what was going to happen that night. If she meets someone, will she go home with him or bring him here? Then he shook his head. No, this is Miss Harrison. She wouldn't spend the night with some bloke she'd just met....

But then, to his surprise, she opened the white plastic bag on her bedside table and took out a box; out of this box she pulled a string of foil squares, tearing off three and stuffing them into her handbag. Harry swallowed, suddenly feeling once more like he didn't know his former teacher at all. She had applied some make-up, which made her appear to be another person altogether. Finally, after one last mirror-check, she left the room, tottering a little on the silvery sandals she'd strapped on to match her dress.

Pip had returned and he could hear them chatting on their way to the car, although he couldn't make out their words. When he heard the car pull out of the garage, he finally allowed himself to breathe again. He stood and picked up the clothes that had been on him, putting them back onto the armchair. Creeping to the window, he watched the car pull away, then looked over at Mrs Figg's house again, his heart leaping into his throat.

Oh, no. I'm in worse trouble than I thought.

Standing on the pavement leading to the front door of Mrs Figg's house was none other than Severus Snape.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Severus Snape dropped the third eye back into his pocket when he heard a strange noise; he turned, his wand out, knowing that the wards placed on Mrs Figg's house would prevent Muggles from noticing him. The sound was coming, it seemed, from the house next door. He edged cautiously toward the pavement, his wand hidden in the folds of his cloak. Suddenly it seemed that an entire wall of the house was folding up and disappearing, and he braced himself, unsure of what was happening but prepared to start hexing at a moment's notice.

After a moment, he saw that a Muggle woman had opened up the wall of the house. She was wearing a silvery blue dress with no sleeves; the hem stopped at mid-thigh when she raised her arms to push upward to enlarge the opening. Her dirty-blonde hair hung long and loose, framing her face. He found, however, that his eyes quickly returned to her legs, which ended in silvery sandals with high heels. He swallowed; seeing Muggle women dressed in leg-baring clothing always flustered him a bit, as witches rarely displayed their legs in public. It seemed terribly forbidden.

He felt annoyed suddenly, for involuntarily reacting to the strange woman. Focus. Stay alert, he ordered himself. He'd been monitoring Draco Malfoy with a third eye that Remus Lupin had provided him before being jolted by the side of the house disappearing. It was bad enough that he was already trying to watch for Potter and monitor Malfoy, but letting a woman distract him was just too much. What is Malfoy up to? he wondered, putting his hand in his pocket again to find the third eye.

The Muggle woman disappeared from sight now but a moment later he heard a car engine, followed by her car backing out of the large square opening in the side of the house and onto the street. She parked it at the kerb, then returned to what he now realised was a garage. She closed the large door again, grunting as she pulled it down toward the ground. He watched her return to her car, unable to take his eyes off the way her dress slid up a bit as she climbed into the driver's seat. When she was finally speeding off down the road, he shook himself again, irritated with himself for being weak. The Dark Lord will eat you for breakfast if you show weakness of any kind, he reminded himself.

Then suddenly, at the back of his mind, a familiar feeling was starting to make itself known; it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck and he looked around suspiciously. It felt like--like his mind was being probed. He immediately closed his eyes, erecting the mental barriers he'd long grown accustomed to using around the Dark Lord and many of his servants. Opening his eyes, he surveyed the empty street, the quiet houses with their neat square lawns. Someone is here, he thought. Someone who sees me. Someone who is not a Muggle.

He glanced back at the house; one of the Aurors, Dawlish, was a particular favorite of Fudge's and had thought he would actually help apprehend Dumbledore. Severus didn't trust him, just as he didn't trust Fudge. He half-wished Dumbledore had allowed himself to become Minister for Magic years ago; they might not be in this predicament if he had. Could Dawlish be practicing Legilimency on him? No, he didn't seem nearly alert enough for that, despite being an Auror, and whoever it had been would need to have eye contact. Dawlish was behind him, just inside the front door of the house. Who then? The sensation was unmistakable, the probing, the intrusion.

Someone was trying to look into his mind.

Severus Snape narrowed his eyes in suspicion and looked around the quiet suburb of Little Whinging, hoping that neither the Dark Lord nor any Death Eaters were nearby or his days as a spy would very soon be over.

His life would very soon be over.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Snape!

Harry swallowed; he reckoned that Snape would like nothing better in the world than to be the person to snap his wand in half. (Snape very much looked like he wanted to be that person at the beginning of Harry's second year, when he and Ron had flown to school in the old Ford Anglia.) To break Harry Potter's wand would be the culmination of his vendetta against James Potter, the high point of his life thus far, of this Harry was certain. Bloody hell. I'll never get past him to reach Mrs Figg. It was bad enough trying to sneak around the castle when he was lurking in the corridors at night....

He put his hand under his shirt and instinctively reached for his wand, the wand Snape would so love to break in half, as he stared down at the tall figure, seething with hatred. Then he was jolted and shook himself, blinking in confusion. While staring down at Snape through his Invisibility Cloak, he hadn't consciously cast a spell or decided to delve into Snape's brain, but somehow he had spontaneously entered into the psyche of the Potions Master anyway, finding himself subjected to image after image of Miss Harrison, and more specifically, her legs. Snape had been staring at Miss Harrison's legs and was thinking about them so much it was practically all that was in his brain! Well, that and some images of Draco Malfoy eating his dinner. What? Harry thought, confused. Why on earth is Snape imagining watching Malfoy eat? And what business does he have thinking about Miss Harrison's legs?

A protective instinct took over and Harry deliberately pulled out of Snape's brain, once he realised what he'd done. Unlike the time he'd inadvertently practiced Legilimency on Snape and had seen some memories from his early life, this time the trip seemed solely to involve current events. (Malfoy, the great prat, still wore his prefect's badge to eat his dinner in the bleeding summer!) Well, Harry thought, Snape told me once that eye contact is usually necessary for this; he just doesn't know that we have eye contact.

Harry was quite shaken and his stomach moved uneasily within him. Somehow he felt that it was sullying Miss Harrison for her to be looked at in that way by Snape, of all people. Then he thought about it and decided that it was also strange that Snape should look at any woman like that. He normally seemed to be so--asexual. Monk-like, but with a streak of cruelty that was distinctly unmonk-like.

He tried to imagine the teenaged Severus Snape he'd seen in the Pensieve asking a girl on a date, but he could not. Imagining him on a date was even more impossible. Snape was just not meant to be thought of in that way, he decided. And I'm less likely to have nightmares, too, he thought, if I don't think about that. He'd rather think about Gordon and Chloe, and that was saying something. Snape had certainly been no charmer, the way he'd called Harry's mother a Mudblood when she'd been trying to defend him. Harry couldn't stop himself from shuddering again and made a greater effort to wipe these thoughts from his brain.

Instead, he found himself thinking about Miss Harrison's legs himself, as well as other body parts he'd had the opportunity to see quite well. She had, of course, been oblivious once again to anyone observing her. She'd very methodically dressed herself, fastening this clasp and that, adjusting her tights, fighting with the buckles on her sandals. She had seemed rather irritated about the whole thing, too, as though getting ready to go to a club was more trouble than it was worth.

And yet--she had put those little foil squares in her handbag....

He went to the bedside table now and carefully poked at the plastic bag. He read the words on the foil squares that remained; he hadn't been mistaken about what they were. There was no doubt about it.

He settled down in the armchair to wait again, tapping his fingers impatiently on the arm, no longer as interested in the way Snape was thinking about her as he was wondering about the reaction she would get from the men at the club where she was going. Then a dreadful thought made his stomach clench: What if she doesn't come home tonight? After all, if she'd been expecting to come home, she wouldn't have bothered taking the condoms with her, and she probably wouldn't have left clothes all over her bed....

Well, he found himself thinking grumpily, contemplating the wild things his former teacher was likely getting up to. A fine example you're setting for one of your former pupils, Miss Harrison.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry was jerked awake by the noise of the garage door opening. He didn't remember falling asleep again. (It was getting very, very boring to sit for hours on end in an empty house, and the only remotely interesting thing on the television had been yet another film about space, which he'd turned off half-way through.) When he checked his watch he found that it was two in the morning.

Hmph, he thought, feeling again a bit like an old curmudgeon. About bloody time. He remembered the way she'd spoken to him when she'd thought he was her dad. Wonder what your dad would think of this if his ghost really was hanging about here?

He crept out of the bedroom and was planning to go down the stairs to the front hall quickly, so that he would be downstairs when she decided to go up to bed. He did not want to try to sleep in the armchair in her bedroom all night, in case he snored and gave himself away. Then he remembered the way she had snored the night before and decided that another good reason not to sleep upstairs was to avoid being kept awake by her noise.

At least she didn't go home with a strange man, he thought, feeling a little better about her. However, almost the second he thought this, he heard the rumbling of a distinctively male voice in the living-room. He froze half-way down the stairs, bending over to be able to see into the doorway and practically falling down the stairs in shock.

Clutching at the railing through his Cloak, he managed to get down the rest of the stairs very quietly, staring the entire time through the living-room doorway, where a man Harry had never seen before was sitting on the couch with Miss Harrison, his arm around her shoulders.

She brought one home! he thought indignantly. Bloody hell. How could she just bring a strange man home?

"You got anything to drink around here, love?" the strange man said to Tilda Harrison. He looked big and beefy and had a rather thick neck, to Harry's eyes. He reminded him of one of the footballers at The Bartered Bull, but better-dressed and less battered.

"I opened a bottle of wine before going out, but Pip and I only had a glass each. Should be perfectly good. I'll get it."

Her voice sounded a little slurred and when she walked toward the kitchen, her hips swayed in a way that caught Harry's attention, until he noticed that this had also caught Club Creep's attention; Harry immediately decided that he didn't like the way she was walking at all and that she was behaving very improperly.

She returned with two glasses of wine, one of which she handed to-- "Tom," she said suddenly, making Harry bristle; he was certain that there couldn't have been a worse name for this man to have. As far as he was concerned, if his name was Tom, there was absolutely no doubt that he was evil incarnate. "I suddenly can't remember--what do you do?"

"Stocks," he said vaguely, taking a sip of his wine and moving his hand to Miss Harrison's thigh, making Harry want to throw something at him.

"Yes, I remember you saying something about stocks, but what does that mean really, 'stocks'? What do you do with them?"

Harry was growing more horrified by the moment; it was clear to him that Miss Harrison was drunk. Which meant that she had been driving in this condition. Unless "Tom" was the one who had driven them down from London. He didn't seem to be as far gone as she was. I thought adults were supposed to be responsible, he thought.

Tom grinned at her. "We pin the stock certificates up on a wall and get some darts and throw. The stocks we hit are the ones we recommend to clients." As soon as he said this he started laughing uproariously at his own joke. He had a very loud, obnoxious laugh, to Harry's ears. "Tom" sounded rather like a braying donkey.

To his satisfaction, Miss Harrison did not laugh at Tom's little "joke" about how he and his colleagues selected recommended stocks. (Harry was quite certain that their clients wouldn't think it was a joke if they really did this.) Unfortunately, the reason for her lack of laughter appeared to be that she was too inebriated to make out what he'd said. She simply squinted at him and said thickly, "I don't get it."

In her current state of dottiness and with her hair down around her face, she was bearing a very striking resemblance to Luna Lovegood, and Harry almost felt like he was witnessing a great hulking stockbroker (who had to have been a footballer at some time in the past, Harry was quite certain) making a pass at a fifteen-year-old girl. What's he playing at? Harry thought angrily, as though "Tom" was also supposed to be seeing Miss Harrison as a teenager.

It was obvious that he was not seeing her this way.

His hand was moving on her thigh and he leaned close to her face. Harry felt his heart going faster as he crept into the room, casting about for something he could do to make them behave other than revealing himself.

He bumped into some shelves near the door, making the glass ornaments on them rattle a little. He jumped at the sound, but when he looked quickly at the pair of them on the couch, they were completely oblivious; Tom appeared to be trying to lick her molars, while his hand snaked under her dress, revealing quite a lot of her legs in the process. Harry reached for something at random on the shelves, throwing caution to the wind, and also throwing the object in his hand at Tom's monstrous head.

"Ow!" Tom cried in pain, separating his mouth from Miss Harrison's very abruptly. Rubbing the back of his head, he bent to pick up the object, which had fallen to the floor, and he looked around suspiciously. "Who did that? What's going on?"

He held tightly to the framed photograph Harry had thrown; the glass had broken and it was difficult now to see who was depicted in the photograph. Having become accustomed to wizarding photographs, it looked strange to Harry for a person to stay so still in a photo. Tilda Harrison grabbed the frame from Tom, staring at the picture and suddenly looking jolted into sobriety. She stood, still holding the photograph and staring at it as though terrified.

"Do you mind explaining what's going on here?" Tom demanded. Harry glowered at him from under his Cloak, looking about for something else he could throw. Tilda put the photograph face down on the shelf where it had been.

"Erm, nothing, nothing at all...." She looked around the room nervously and Tom squinted at her.

"Are you all right?"

She swallowed and nodded, her pale eyes wide. She was standing in the living-room doorway now, her eyes sweeping the room nervously. "Perhaps--perhaps we should take this upstairs...."

Tom looked entirely too enthusiastic about that, as far as Harry was concerned. He hopped up from the couch, forgetting about his wine and straightening his tie as though this would make him look more dashing. As the pair of them starting ascending the stairs, Harry grabbed the photograph again in desperation and lobbed it yet again at the back of Tom's head. He hit him squarely, producing another outraged roar from the large man; when the frame fell to the floor of the hall the glass shattered further, scattering small shards.

"Bloody hell!" Tom cried; when he touched the back of his head this time, his hand came away with a bit of red on it.

"What kind of house is this?" he demanded of her, as though she could have thrown the frame at him while walking ahead of him up the stairs. He stomped down to the bottom of the stairs again and Tilda turned, white-faced when she saw the frame lying face up on the floor with its glass missing.

"It's--well--I can explain--"

"I doubt it!" he cried angrily, striding to the front door and pulling it open angrily. "And even if you could, I wouldn't be here to listen!"

He walked out in high dudgeon; she started to follow him. "But--how are you going to get home?"

"I've got my mobile; I'll call for a bloody taxi!" he growled; through the open door, Harry could see him striding angrily away.

"But--but I don't think you'll--" she started to say, trailing off; "--get one at this hour," she finished softly, leaning wearily against the door. "At least in Little Whinging," she added even more quietly. After staring out into the night for a minute she suddenly slammed the door quite hard, muttering, "Bollocks," under her breath. She stooped to pick up the frame, which Harry hadn't dared to touch again.

To his surprise, she started to talk to the frame. "Now, listen, Dad, I don't know what you're playing at, but let's get one thing straight here: I am an adult. That means a lot of things. I work to support myself, I don't need anyone to take care of me and I can bloody well bring home a nice bloke if I like and go to bed with him!"

Her voice ended on a growl as she put the frame back on its shelf yet again; Harry saw now that it was a black and white photograph of a middle-aged man with dark blond hair and eyes that looked just like Matilda Harrison's. Her dad's photograph. Of all the things I had to choose, it was her dad's photograph. Brilliant.

She paced angrily now, drinking her wine and addressing the photograph. "You know, I'm starting to think Pip was right! I do need a man; not to support me or tell me what to do. Tonight I just needed a man in bed with me," she cried, pointing upward, "especially as there hasn't been one there in over a year. That's right! I'm saying it. To you. I'm an adult and I wanted to bring someone home for shagging and I don't care what you think about any of it." She sipped her wine and paced restlessly some more. There was a wild light in her eye as she began to address the photograph again.

"You never did accept my growing up, you know that," she added her voice growing louder. She took a rather large gulp of wine this time. "You were always interfering with my boyfriends. Suited you, didn't it, to have me around to clean the house and do the cooking? And what a hypocrite! It's not as though you lived like a monk, did you? After Mum left and Audrey took her side, Jack and I knew you were carrying on with Mrs. Parker. How convenient, wasn't it, that an attractive divorcee moved in next door, yeah? How bloody-sodding convenient for you!"

Her voice rose on a shriek and she punctuated her rant by throwing her wine glass at the mantle, where it shattered and made droplets of wine fly. She stared at the mantle, blinking.

"Oh, bloody hell. I wasn't done drinking that," she said in a softly slurred voice. Harry grimaced; he didn't think she needed any more wine. And after the way she'd spoken to her father earlier he was rather surprised about the outburst. But then he remembered his own father and thought, These relationships are never simple, no matter who you are.

And then there had been Sirius, whose hypocrisy had irked him more than once during the previous year. He swallowed, jolted at first, but then thinking, Yes. He could be the biggest bloody hypocrite. And then he'd try to goad me into doing something by telling me that my dad would have done it just because it was a challenge and he'd want to be able to say he'd done it....

It was strangely exhilarating to be having thoughts of anger concerning Sirius. Freeing. He wondered whether Miss Harrison felt the same way. He didn't have to wonder for long.

She had simply stood, blinking, looking at her father's photograph for a minute after throwing the wine glass. She shook herself now, as though she'd woken up. Lifting her chin, she informed the photograph, "And now I'm going up to bed. Alone. But the next time I don't want to do that alone I'll thank you to mind your own bleeding business!"

She strode angrily to the stairs and, after three attempts to put her foot on the bottom step, she finally managed to start ascending the stairs. Half-way up she turned and spoke toward the living-room. "I'll get a sodding exorcist in here if I have to! Mark my words!" Then she turned and seemed to be pulling herself up the remaining stairs by tightly grasping the handrail; getting to the top of the stairs thus seemed to have far more to do with her arms than her legs. Harry watched her until she was out of sight; he sat on the couch, letting a relieved sigh out at last.

Well, he wasn't really terribly sorry that he'd managed to drive off Tom the Club Creep, but he was rather sorry that he'd caused her so much trouble, starting the first thing in the morning, with the broken toilet. Her day would have been much calmer if it weren't for him. He walked to the kitchen so he could peer out at Mrs Figg's house again, but the moment he did, he saw Snape once more. He ducked down instinctively before realizing that this was unnecessary and returned to the living-room.

Sinking onto the couch, he decided that the next day, if Snape was still over there, he should just face the music and turn himself in. Perhaps Snape wasn't there to break his wand. He might have been there at Dumbledore's request, to spirit him away from the Ministry Aurors. Harry sighed. Sooner or later he would probably have to learn to trust Snape. He wished he'd remembered he was a member of the Order when he was convinced that Sirius was being tortured by Voldemort....

But not tonight. He was exhausted and feeling awful enough about what he'd put Miss Harrison through; he didn't feel like having Snape rail at him for his stupidity tonight. That could wait for the morning. Harry was definitely in no hurry to experience that.

So he curled in a ball once more, covering himself thoroughly and, after a time of his thoughts chasing each other frantically around his brain, dropped off into a less peaceful sleep than he'd enjoyed the night before, but sleep nonetheless.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

His long, thin pale fingers caressed the back of the chair. "Do we know where Potter is yet?"

"No, but Dumbledore is sure to know, and Snape is his man, so we're just shadowing him."

"And you are certain that he knows nothing?"

Peter Pettigrew nodded, never taking his eyes from his master. "I am certain, Master. He believes that you believe that he is a loyal Death Eater and that you already exacted punishment for his 'pretending' to be Dumbledore's spy."

"Good," the cold high voice intoned ominously. "I do hate to tip my hand prematurely...."

"Never fear, Master. I have observed him when in my rat form; he cannot probe my mind when I am a rat. He does not perceive my mind as something high and logical enough to be a human."

His master nodded, the glowing red eyes surveying the trembling, round little man.

"Good," he said again, laughing. "Good. We can have some fun with him, first. Make sure he sees and hears some things that will serve to get rid of as many of Dumbledore's people as possible...."

He did not finish speaking but simply laughed and laughed in that cold, cruel way he had. Peter Pettigrew smiled feebly at his master and every so often attempted to laugh along.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"ARRGGGGH!

Harry woke up with a start, holding his scar; Voldemort was happy. Why was he so happy? He wracked his brain, trying to remember....

When he heard footsteps on the stairs, he turned to see Tilda Harrison running down them wearing a large man's shirt. She stopped in shock and stared into the living-room. Harry wondered why. Then he realised that she was looking right at him and a second later he looked down, seeing his Invisibility Cloak lying in a heap at his feet.

No no no no no no no.....

She stood over him and swallowed, whispering uncertainly, "Harry?"

He swallowed and smiled feebly at her.

"Good morning, Miss Harrison," he said softly.

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