Harry Potter and the Polka Dot Plague

Chapter 8 - The Chase

"I don't think this is where we're supposed to be." Harry had never been to St. Mungo's, but he was reasonably sure this wasn't it. "What happened?"

"The Portkey must've malfunctioned." Snape's voice was calm. He pulled the ladle from Harry's grip and held it close to his face, as if expecting it to provide an answer somehow. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but Harry could just imagine him scowling critically, as he always did when examining a Gryffindor's work.

"It couldn't have," Harry blurted. "I mean-Professor Dumbledore made it. Unless… maybe it's the Skittles?"

"No. It's not a spell cast by us, or on us, so it should've worked normally. Something must've interfered with it. But how-" Snape's posture grew suddenly rigid. He sucked in a sharp breath, then spat out a string of words Harry never expected to hear from a teacher. At the same time, he removed his dressing gown and threw it to the ground, kicking it away as if it was something disgusting. "Lucius. I should've known."

Harry was starting to get a horrible cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater. If he had arranged this detour… This was a trap, a trap set by Voldemort and sprung with a Portkey, just like the last time, just like when Cedric-

"Potter." Snape was reaching for him. "Come on, boy, we need to get-"

"No!" Harry backpedaled away, barely avoiding a fall as his foot caught on a protruding tree root. "Don't! Stay away from me!"

Snape froze in mid-reach, and Harry saw his out-stretched hand clench into a fist. It looked very white in the moonlight. "Damn it, Potter, do you seriously still think, after all this time, that I-" He broke off, breathing heavily.

Harry didn't know what Snape was talking about, and he didn't care. All he knew was that he had to get away. He had to put as much distance as possible between himself and Snape before Voldemort decided to kill the spare. Harry turned and ran, ignoring Snape's angry shouts behind him.

His body wasted no time in reminding him that he was in no condition to be sprinting through forests in the middle of the night. After only a few steps, his sides started to cramp and his heart pounded painfully in his chest. Harry bit his lip and kept going, telling himself that Snape was even worse off and therefore would, hopefully, be going even slower. All he had to do was get far enough away.

It was like running through a nightmare. The forest seemed like a living, hostile entity working to stop him. Stones and roots sprang up to trip him; branches snagged at his pajamas and scratched at his face. Harry held up his hands to protect his eyes and kept running, though he fell several times and once banged his knee painfully against a sharp rock.

Someone shouted ahead of him. Light flared. Harry stumbled to a halt and saw a masked Death Eater standing in a gap between two fir trees, wand upraised. The Death Eater shouted a spell, and a small rock floated up from the ground and launched itself at Harry's face. He felt it part his hair as he ducked.

The Death Eater moved toward him, so Harry turned and ran back in the direction he had come from, zigzagging from side to side to make himself into a more difficult target as more rocks flew at him. He tried to tell himself that it was just like dodging Bludgers, but Quidditch games did not take place in pitch dark, on treacherous ground amidst looming black trees.

A stone struck his shoulder. Another smacked into his back. Harry fell to his knees and scrambled up again, just in time to see two more Death Eaters coming toward him from the left. They all obviously knew about the Skittles, because none of them tried to cast a spell directly on him. Instead they waved their wands, and the trees around Harry came to life, reaching for him with branches that suddenly resembled writhing, clawed tentacles.

It was like being caught in a forest full of Whomping Willows. The branches struck like whips, ripping right through the thin fabric of Harry's pajamas and lacerating his skin. Harry yelled and threw himself to the ground, landing with a hard thud that knocked the breath from his lungs. He could hear the loud, angry rustling as the trees flailed at the air above him. It took him a few moments to realize that they couldn't touch him as long as he lay flat. Harry stayed put long enough to catch his breath, then began to crawl on his stomach, lifting his head just high enough to keep his mouth from filling with dirt as he wriggled along the ground.

Angry yells behind him indicated that the attacking trees were hindering his pursuers at least as much as him. There was a great deal of crashing and swearing. Then a loud, angry voice Harry recognized as Lucius Malfoy's cried "Finite Incantatum!" and the flailing overhead stopped abruptly. Harry scrambled to his feet and took off running again, but he only made it a couple of paces before the ground suddenly dropped out from under him.

Harry flung his arms out in front of him as he fell. For a second, his hands found nothing but air; then his palms slammed into solid ground with a force that jarred all the way to his shoulders, and he was rolling, rolling, head over heels down a steep slope.

He didn't stop until he smashed into a tree at the bottom. There was a fiery, throbbing pain in his right knee and a sharp, stabbing pain in his ribs. More than anything, Harry wanted to just lie there and whimper, but he could hear footsteps crunching through the undergrowth toward him from more than one direction, and he knew he had to keep moving. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Harry braced his hands against the tree trunk and began to haul himself up.

He'd just made it to his feet, and was still gripping the trunk to steady himself, when a very large Death Eater in disheveled robes appeared from behind a nearby tree. He looked like one of the pair who'd sent the trees after him, though Harry couldn't be sure. At the same time, another figure staggered from the shadows, coughing and gasping for breath.

A lot of things happened very quickly then. The Death Eater raised his wand. A rock the size of a Bludger rose from the ground and zoomed toward Harry The staggering man lurched forward, shouting "Potter!" in a harsh voice that was barely recognizable as Professor Snape's. He knocked into Harry, toppling him over sideways. They both slammed against the tree, and the rock that had been headed for Harry's face slammed into the side of Snape's head with a horrible wet crunch. Snape fell without a sound, landing in a motionless heap at Harry's feet.

"No!" Harry yelled. He took a couple of staggering steps, and fell as his right leg collapsed under him. Somewhere nearby, Lucius Malfoy was shouting, "Goyle, you idiot, you're not supposed to *kill* the boy!" but Harry couldn't bring himself to worry about it. All he could think was, it had happened again. He'd tried so hard, and it had happened anyway…

A hand grabbed his collar and pulled him roughly to his feet.

"I have him, Lucius!"

"Good. Bring him here, then."

The Death Eater - either Goyle or Crabbe, the fathers were as interchangeable as the sons, especially in their masks - dragged Harry through a gap between some trees and into a clearing. It was the same spot he and Snape had landed in earlier; Harry realized he must've run in a circle earlier. Two other Death Eaters waited there. Harry assumed that the one who was smaller than a mountain had to be Lucius Malfoy.

"Excellent, Goyle. Keep a good grip now, this boy has an annoying habit of getting away at the last moment." Malfoy dug inside his robes and brought out something that glittered in the moonlight. He held it up in front of his face, and Harry saw that it was a faceted crystal sphere. Malfoy passed his wand over it, and the crystal began to glow with a pale green light.

"My Lord." Malfoy's normally arrogant, drawling voice sounded hushed and respectful now. "Please attend your humble servant. I have a gift for you."

The crystal's glow intensified. Something flickered inside it, and Harry thought he could see twin sparks of red amidst the green, like a pair of eyes.

"Lucius." The voice that hissed from within the crystal was unmistakably Voldemort's. "I hope you have a good reason to disturb me. I have more important things to do with my time than listen to your toadying."

"Please, my Lord. I would never have contacted you uninvited if it weren't important. Look. Lumos!" Lucius raised his glowing wand with one hand, and swung his hand around so that the eyes within the crystal were facing Harry. "I have captured Harry Potter for you. Alive, so you may have the pleasure of killing him yourself."

"Ahhh… You have done well, Lucius." For a moment, the red eyes grew so bright they almost drowned out the green light surrounding them. Then all the light in the crystal faded. A moment later, Voldemort himself stood in the clearing, draped in flowing robes that rustled against the dead leaves at his feet.

Harry made a renewed effort to break free. His pajama top ripped, and for a moment he actually thought he'd make it, but then Goyle shifted his vise-like grip from Harry's collar to his shoulder and pushed, driving Harry to his knees. Harry bit back a cry and made himself look up as Voldemort approached him.

"Harry Potter." Voldemort reached out with one skeletal gray hand and twined his fingers in Harry's hair. "I have been- what's this?" He released his grip abruptly and rocked back a step, hissing with anger.

"What is it, my Lord?" Malfoy stepped forward, but Voldemort paid him no mind. He was staring at Harry's bare shoulder where it poked out through the rip in his pajamas.

"Lucius, you FOOL!" Voldemort's voice rose to an enraged shriek on the last word. He took another stumbling step backwards away from Harry, and Disapparated.

There was a brief, stunned silence. Harry had no idea what had just happened, and while it was hard to judge the reactions of people dressed in full-face masks and hooded robes, he thought the Death Eaters around him were equally confused.

"What happened?" Goyle grunted finally.

"I don't know." Lucius Malfoy sounded stunned. "He just left. Something must've-"

A glowing bolt of magic struck him in the chest and sent him reeling backwards. Another bolt struck Goyle; he let go of Harry's shoulder and staggered back, howling in pain or alarm.

A bright light blossomed in the air above the clearing, illuminating it as clearly as daylight. Harry looked in the direction the bolts had come from and saw Professor Dumbledore standing at the edge of the tree line, flanked by McGonagall and Flitwick. All three teachers had their wands out and were looking extremely grim. There was an eruption of panicked shouts around the clearing, cutting off abruptly as all three Death Eaters Disapparated.

"Harry!" McGonagall ran toward him. "Are you all right? Did they hurt you?"

"I'm okay." Harry struggled to his feet, gripping McGonagall's arm for support. "But Professor Snape… they hit him… I think he might be dead." Just saying the words made his chest hurt.

Flitwick and McGonagall both gasped. Dumbledore stepped forward quickly, and put one hand on Harry's shoulder. His grip was surprisingly strong, and his eyes were bright and urgent.

"Where is he, Harry? Show us."

"This way."

With Dumbledore and McGonagall supporting him and Flitwick trailing behind, Harry limped back toward the tree where Goyle had caught him. Snape was still there, face down on the ground, his nightshirt tangled around his legs. One side of his face was shiny with blood; the edge of his collar was soaked with it, and so was his hair. Harry felt sick, and leaned more heavily on Dumbledore's arm.

"Severus!" Professor Flitwick squatted at Snape's side. "Oh, my…" He gently lifted Snape's head from the ground, and used the hem of his robe to try to staunch the bleeding. "He's still breathing, but he needs medical attention immediately."

"Can you Apparate with him?" McGonagall asked. Flitwick nodded. "Good. Albus and I will take Harry."

"Hold on to me, Harry," Dumbledore told him. "Don't let go until I say so."

Harry buried his fingers in a fold of Dumbledore's sleeve, closed his eyes, and waited to Apparate.

TBC