Into the Fold

A BLOODY MESS

June 1976

Severus returned again and again to Black's proposal. Touch a knot on the Whomping Willow's trunk which would open into an underground passageway leading straight to Remus Lupin and his secret? Leading straight into a trap, more likely, sprung by Potter's gang with Lupin as the bait, another game of four-on-one with Severus playing the one.

And yet there was a way to still the Willow's branches--Black was right about that. Severus had seen it for himself on the night of the May full moon, when he had seen Madam Pomfrey approach the Whomping Willow with Remus Lupin.

Madam Pomfrey...whatever she had to do with this, it was not as a player in one of Potter's practical jokes. If she'd brought Lupin to the Willow in May, she most likely had brought him there in the other months. Lupin wouldn't be allowed unsupervised jaunts in the grounds at curfew, any more than any other student. Would Potter's gang dare to lie in wait for Severus when Madam Pomfrey might catch them?

Severus would take the same risk of discovery if he took Black up on his dare. Perhaps Black thought he wouldn't have the nerve. Perhaps he'd tossed out his proposition only so he could taunt Severus when he, after all his curiosity, did the sensible thing and backed down.

But if he didn't back down.... What if he could get something on Potter and Black's friend, on McGonagall and Dumbledore's pet, the pallid and obedient Prefect who let Potter and Black get away with murder? What if he could prove that Lupin's friends were hiding something they shouldn't? What if Severus found something that got Lupin, Black, Potter and Pettigrew expelled? What if he could get rid of his tormentors for good?

Why not give it a try? If Black was lying or setting a trap, he'd find out soon enough. And he had useful friends now, Ruskin, Lestrange and their Slytherin followers. He could make Black pay.

If all else failed, there was always the Veritaserum. Slughorn had left the cauldron of Veritaserum under lock and key in his office throughout the project, and it was there now, undergoing its month of maturation. But he'd never given Severus and Lily (or Lily, anyway) any trouble about handing over the potion whenever they'd needed to work on it, and he'd never hovered while they'd worked.

The Veritaserum would be ready on the twelfth of June, the day after the full moon and a couple of weeks before the end of term. Severus wondered. Could he--just possibly--nick a few drops before he and Lily turned in their sample phials to Slughorn?

It was incredibly dangerous. He might not dare to give the Veritaserum to Lupin even if he did manage to spirit it out of Slughorn's office. Lupin would be the first to suspect why he'd suddenly spilled the secret to Severus which he'd held back for months. Severus would have to Obliviate Lupin very quickly and effectively, or Slughorn would learn of the theft.

What had Slughorn said on the day Severus had chosen Veritaserum for his Potions project?

"Six months in Azkaban if you do use it illicitly."

He might have said it to Black, but he'd meant it as a warning to Severus. Not to Lily, though she'd wanted to brew Veritaserum as much as he did. It was Severus whom Slughorn had all but pegged as a Dark wizard.

The Whomping Willow it was, then. Severus would see what he could find there, under the light of the full moon. He wouldn't think again of the Veritaserum unless it was absolutely necessary and absolutely worth the risk.

No need to tell Lupin or Black, of course. With a small, tight smile, Severus savoured the memory of Lupin stammering, of Black freezing when he'd said the word "Veritaserum." No. Let them worry.

****

And thus the long, bright evening of the eleventh of June--the evening of the full moon--found Severus in the near vicinity of the Whomping Willow. About an hour before sunset, he had slipped away from the packs of students enjoying Friday-evening freedom on the lawns and around the lake.

Neither Potter nor any of his friends had been among those taking the air: Severus had taken particular care to look, and when he had arrived at the willow, he had taken particular care to look all around there, too.

His thorough search proved that no one else was at the Whomping Willow. The willow wasn't that far from the Forbidden Forest. Severus soon found a broken tree branch on the ground. He doubted it was long enough to reach past the limbs of the willow at its most aggressive, but he supposed he could Levitate it to touch the knot which opened into the passage to Lupin's secret. If Black hadn't lied to him, and the knot and passage existed.

Severus would soon find out. He took the branch and lay flat in the tall grass of a knoll about half-way between the Forbidden Forest and the Whomping Willow, close enough to watch whatever went on at the willow, far enough to feel confident that the growing dusk would hide him. A peek above the tips of the grass showed him not only the Willow but the grounds to the castle and the greenhouses beyond. He would miss nothing.

He lay in the grass without moving. Usually he kept his gaze fixed on the castle, but occasionally his eyes swept the panorama below him.

The sun dipped toward the mountains, and Severus felt his eyes drawn to the soft lawns near a curve of the forest, where last month moonlight had called forth magical mushrooms in fairy-rings at his and Lily's feet. His chest tightened with an inexplicable pang.

No, not inexplicable. Pointless.

Never mind that, though--was that movement coming from Hogwarts Castle? Severus cautiously parted the grass. The sun was setting: the last of its red-gold rays stretched across the school grounds. The moon was a pale disk above the Forbidden Forest, too pale as yet to send its beams to earth. Two figures made a beeline across the lawns from the castle toward the Whomping Willow: Madam Pomfrey and Remus Lupin.

Severus watched fascinated as they drew near. Neither spoke. Lupin's face was rigid. He had a tense, over-stretched air about him. Madam Pomfrey glanced at him occasionally when he wasn't looking, with uncharacteristic gentleness.

They stopped within a few yards of the willow, though still outside its ken, for its branches didn't wave. Madam Pomfrey glanced around, looking exactly like a mischief-making student ascertaining that the coast was clear. Then, with a flick of her wand, she Disillusioned Lupin and herself. In another moment, the willow's branches began whipping through the air.

Craning his neck, Severus only just stopped himself from standing straight up. Disillusionment wouldn't prevent Lupin and Madam Pomfrey from seeing him. At the same time, he didn't want to miss seeing whatever it was Madam Pomfrey did to still the willow branches.

Another moment passed, and the branches stopped moving. But to his intense disappointment, Severus didn't see what had been done, or indeed whether anything had been done. A breeze might have set the willow off, for all anyone could have seen, and when the breeze had died, the tree had gone quiet.

And the knot that supposedly opened into an underground passage? Severus cautiously raised his head above the grass and peered hard at the willow's trunk. It looked like an ordinary tree trunk. From his vantage point, he saw several knots on the trunk, none of which exactly shouted out to him that it was the entrance to a secret tunnel.

Severus lay flat again. As far as he could tell, Madam Pomfrey was still with Lupin--wherever he was. Severus couldn't move closer to the willow to investigate as long as there was a chance she might pop up at him, out of Disillusionment, the secret passage or wherever else she and Lupin might have gone. He had time, he supposed. Lupin was always gone for at least a day, and Madam Pomfrey couldn't stay with him the whole time, could she? She had to go back to the castle; she had an infirmary to tend to--

Wait, was that her? Severus rose to a crouch. Yes. Madam Pomfrey was climbing out of the Whomping Willow's roots and rather awkwardly at that. As soon as she'd scrambled out, she laid her hand at the base of the trunk. The willow remained still. Breezes riffled the grass around Severus, but not so much as a leaf trembled on the Whomping Willow. Madam Pomfrey ducked beneath the motionless branches and, striding out of the willow's range, headed for Hogwarts Castle.

Severus crept forward as far as he dared. He squinted. There was a small extrusion on the tree trunk where Madam Pomfrey had laid her hand.

The knot. Black had told the truth. Touching the knot at the base of its trunk kept the willow from whomping. That same knot opened into--whatever Madam Pomfrey had just climbed out of.

Severus retreated into the grass and watched Madam Pomfrey until, little more than a speck against the gathering dusk, she melted into the shadows cast by Hogwarts Castle.

Severus raced forward, branch and wand in hand. But he didn't go immediately to the willow. He looked all around, high and low, for Potter, Black and Pettigrew, still fearing that somewhere, somehow, they'd laid another trap.

But they were nowhere to be seen. And no one had come with Madam Pomfrey but Remus Lupin. So, finally, Severus turned to face the Whomping Willow. He Levitated his stick between the drooping branches, and the willow creaked and writhed. His stick touched the knot, and the willow stopped.

The knot melted and flowed, stretching vertically to a thin crack that looked like a pattern of bark. Then the trunk split to the roots along the crack, opening wide upon a passage that descended abruptly into darkness.

Black had told the simple truth. Why, Severus didn't know. But there it was.

Severus walked safely between branches still frozen as if in winter ice. He squeezed himself through the gap in the tree roots and slid downward on his belly until he landed on the floor of a tunnel. Black was still leading him aright.

The tunnel was narrow, with close, encircling walls. Its ceiling was so low that Severus could rise no higher than a crouch, and the fastest way to move was on hands and knees. He crept forward a few feet, then stopped. Had the knot closed again? Was he trapped?

He twisted around and scrabbled back up to the willow roots. He lit his wand and found that the trunk was closed tight. His heart crawled into his throat. But when he touched the trunk, the gap opened. Looking through it, he saw a thin drapery of willow branches and the moonlit grounds of Hogwarts.

Good. If he needed to get out fast, he could.

Severus wriggled back to the tunnel floor and, putting his lit wand between his teeth, crept forward on his hands and knees. Then he heard the keening.

At first he thought his ears were ringing, so he ignored it. As he crawled further, the keening intensified into an animal howling, with an undercurrent of very human-sounding pain.

Severus stopped short. His mind went at once to Black, then to Potter, but neither of them could have produced that keening howl. They couldn't have understood it. The feeling in that howl was too heart-burstingly great, the anger too hot, the pain too deep for their comprehension.

What could be making that sound? Something wild, something trapped and helpless. Severus had never heard anything so fiercely desolate. Though the howling frightened him, he felt almost inaccessibly, in some buried place in his heart, that he couldn't abandon the creature uttering those cries.

Lupin would feel the same way: Severus knew that if he knew Lupin at all. Was he with the creature now?

The howling stopped.

Severus hesitated. His wandlight revealed a bend in the tunnel ahead. He'd just look around it. He crept forward, turned the corner and came to an abrupt halt. Except for his quickening breaths, all remained silent as Severus looked some yards away--he couldn't tell exactly how far--at wandlight reflected back at him by a pair of amber eyes.

Severus snatched his wand from his mouth, raised it and brightened its light with a whispered spell. The light shone on a thewy, coarse-furred body with a canine snout. It gleamed on two rows of knife-sharp teeth and a thread of slaver hanging from the side of a widely-grinning mouth.

Severus had never heard anything like the howls. But he knew this creature which had produced them. He'd seen its image in sensational photographs in the Daily Prophet, in woodcuts in dark bestiaries, in the pictures illustrating the werewolf chapters of his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbooks.

The werewolf lunged.

With a sob of terror, Severus writhed around and crawled as fast as he could toward the tunnel opening. He knew he'd never make it, though. He was dead. No spell he knew would slow the werewolf long enough for him to escape, even if he dared take the time to cast it. No single wizard could stop a werewolf; Aurors always hunted them in pairs.

The werewolf gained on him. Its growl was louder, the scrabbling of its claws closer. Soon he'd feel its hot breath on his heels. Then, the bite.

The werewolf didn't howl. Severus did. He threw his head back, cried aloud in despair--and saw the tip of a Lumos-lit wand directly ahead of him.

"Fucking shit!" said a familiar voice, and James Potter half-crawled, half-hurled himself forward. His glasses were slightly askew and his eyes were wild. "Stun him!" he gasped. "With me...we both need to hit him!"

At the same time. Like Aurors. Potter pointed his wand over Severus's shoulder. Severus turned and aimed at snapping, dripping jaws no more than two feet from his heels. With one voice, he and Potter yelled, "Stupefy!"

Stunning spells jetted from their wands and joined in one fiery red dart that shot into the werewolf's open mouth to the back of its throat. The doubled spell lifted it off its feet, jerking its head back so that it struck its crown on the tunnel ceiling. Dirt and pebbles loosened by the blow pattered around it as it thudded to the floor.

But two Stunners hadn't knocked the werewolf out. Immediately, incredibly, it twitched. It lifted its head and tried to get to its feet.

Potter grabbed Severus's arm. "Come on, let's go!" He dragged Severus at a crouching run, so fast that Severus could hardly get his footing, through the tunnel and up the incline to the roots of the Whomping Willow.

Severus heard a low, panting growl behind them. Gasping, Potter pounded the knot on the trunk with his fist. The trunk burst open. Potter pulled Severus out, thrust him aside, spun around and touched the trunk. The gap closed, the knot re-formed and the tree limbs remained still.

Potter dashed out of the willow's range. Already it was gearing up to strike, so Severus ran after him. "What about Lupin?" he demanded. He disliked Lupin, but not enough to leave him in that tunnel. "The wolf. He's in there--"

"And he won't get out. Madam Pomfrey and Professor Sprout cast enchantments on the Whomping Willow a long time ago to hold him in." Potter pocketed his wand, pushed his glasses up on his nose and stared at Severus with fear in his eyes.

Severus stared back. Comprehension blew through his brain like white-hot fire. The impossible had happened. The incredible was true.

"That wasn't Lupin's mother," he whispered.

"Lupin's mother! For Christ's sake!" Potter ran a hand through his dusty hair, so that it stuck out in crazy spikes all around his head. "Look, I can explain--"

"You can explain to me what you are doing here."

"--Sirius didn't mean--"

"So he did tell you."

"I can explain--"

"Expelliarmus!"

Potter froze, eyes widening as he watched his wand fly from his pocket.

Severus knew what had happened now, oh, yes, and he was shaking with rage. But that didn't mean he forgot to put Potter's wand into an inner pocket of his robe. He didn't want that wand back in the hand of someone who had nearly got him killed.

"No," said Severus. "I can explain. You, Black and Lupin planned this."

"We planned-- no, you've got it all wrong--"

"Shut up!" shouted Severus. The Firewhip shot from his wand, and Potter was damned lucky Severus had some control, that it only struck him in the face. He yelped in pain.

"I've got it exactly right," said Severus. "You masterminded this and you're here to enjoy the show. Lupin's a werewolf, and you and Black knew it. So did Pettigrew; you're all in the same dormitory. Madam Pomfrey locks him in that tunnel every month--why a tunnel? Why not a cellar, a hole in the ground? Where does that tunnel go, anyway?"

Potter looked at him in sullen silence. Severus raised his wand.

"Hogsmeade," said Potter quickly. "The Shrieking Shack."

"Of course," said Severus. "Everybody thinks it's a haunted house because they've heard howling there every month. So when there's a werewolf there--howling--everybody stays away." He went on, drawing solid conclusions from the feathery fancies that had floated around in his brain for months. "Madam Pomfrey knows, but she's not the only one. All the teachers know. They must. That's why none of them ever asks why Lupin's absent every month at the full moon."

"That's right!" Potter said belligerently, though his face under the Firewhip's welts was paler than the moonlight shining on him could have made it. "So if you've got any idea of getting Remus expelled--"

"Remus?" Severus said softly. "Only Remus? Why stop at one of you when I can get all of you expelled? You knew I was on Lupin's trail. You sent Black to tell me how to get inside the Whomping Willow. You told Lupin to put himself where the wolf would see me when I got inside."

"I might have known you'd think that. Well, you're dead wrong as usual. I came down here to stop you going in, as soon as Sirius told me what he'd done. Reckon he thought it was a good joke--I don't know what he thought. All I knew was that if you went into that tunnel, you'd come face-to-face with a fully-grown werewolf."

Already cooking up his story for McGonagall and Dumbledore, was he? Liar. "You do think I'm a fool, don't you?" Severus jabbed his wand at Potter, who backed off a few steps. "You wanted to scare me into silence. You wanted me to see exactly what you'd let loose on me if I ever spilled Lupin's secret." Severus jabbed again; Potter backed further off. "If I were bitten or killed, what was that to you and Black? You could swear up and down that you knew nothing about it. If Lupin contradicted you, so what? It would be your word against that of a werewolf."

"Our word against--what do you take us for? Remus is our friend!"

"You and your friends!" snarled Severus. "Where are they, by the way; why aren't they here laughing? Black!" he called. "Pettigrew!"

Potter glanced over his shoulder toward the castle.

"Yes! I'm right, aren't I, Potter? You expect your audience at any moment. Well, let me tell you something. You're all finished here. All four of you. And if Dumbledore doesn't want to expel his Gryffindor pets, I'll see to it the whole school finds out Pomfrey is covering up for Lupin."

Potter jerked around. "No," he said softly, "it's not Remus's fault."

With a shock of delight, Severus realised he was pleading. "Oh, yes, it is." He didn't try to keep the glee out of his voice. "The dirty werewolf prefect's toadied to you one too many times. Just wait until the parents find out Dumbledore's let a werewolf into Hogwarts. Just wait till they find out the werewolf's friends practically fed him a student. You won't be back next year, Potter. None of you will be back."

Potter's expression went from fear to fury. Clenching his fists, he took a step toward Severus. But before Severus raised his wand, he stopped. His face went quiet and his eyes cold. He let his hands drop to his sides.

"All right, then, Snivelly. All right. Maybe you can get Remus expelled for doing what werewolves do, which is chase the stupid gits that get in their way. But you can't get Peter expelled because he never knew a thing about Sirius's plans. And if you think Sirius's dad and my dad are going to let Dumbledore take the word of a greasy little jumped-up half-blood over ours, you'd better think again."

Oh, that was where pampered Potter had it all wrong. Severus sneered at him. "You're the one who'd better think again. Black's father couldn't care less about him. Or you. He won't play along."

"See, Snape, that's all a bloody climbing little wanker like you knows." A smile spread across Potter's face, but didn't reach his eyes. "Doesn't matter that Sirius's father doesn't like him. All that matters to him is that some grimy little nobody with a Muggle mill worker for a father is trying to get his son thrown out of the school the Blacks have attended for generations."

Severus stared at him. Potter's parents loved him. Black's did not. In every other respect, they inhabited the same world, unimaginably far from Severus's world. Potter knew his way around that world as Severus never could.

"Yeah," said Potter softly. "Yeah. Now you're getting it. It's not going to be so easy to force Sirius and me out of Hogwarts. And if we're still here after you've got Remus Lupin expelled, Sirius and I are going to make every minute of your seventh year at Hogwarts a living hell. I promise you that."

"You wouldn't dare," whispered Severus.

"You think so? Why? You didn't think I'd stick at handing you over to a werewolf. Why do you think I'd let you get Remus expelled and probably sent to Azkaban? Why do you think Dumbledore will let you ruin Remus's life, when it's he who personally invited Remus to attend Hogwarts? Why do you think you can do any of it when it's my dad, not yours, who's Dumbledore's friend?"

Severus could hardly breathe. But, looking into Potter's flushed face, he could think. He might be lying in that tunnel now, mauled, made into a werewolf, perhaps dead, while Potter helped Black work out how they would use their families' influence to escape the consequences of what they'd done. Potter, who had everything--blood, wealth, looks, love--and deserved nothing.

"You think you'll get away with this--" Severus choked. He took a deep, harsh breath. "That's all my life is worth to you, isn't it? I'm no more than a piece of rubbish to be kicked out of your path. I think you need to learn what a werewolf attack is like. I think you need to feel what it's like to be torn to bloody rags."

Severus raised his wand and loosed his hate. It raced through the veins of his arm, a dark fire burning to the tips of his fingers, inflaming his wand.

"Sectumsempra!"

The spell sliced across Potter's abdomen, chest and jaw. He screamed as it threw him to the ground. Blood fountained from him as it never had from Ruskin's hedgehog. In moments it had soaked his robe and flowed in ever-growing rivulets on to the grass. His breath came in choking gasps, and before Severus's eyes his face went from red to parchment-white. Then it greyed, and Potter's eyes rolled back in his head.

Severus heard the pounding of running feet. But, gaping at Potter, he couldn't turn. He couldn't even move.

The pounding came closer. Then, "Jesus!" gasped Sirius Black.

"James!" cried Peter Pettigrew. Hurtling forward, he cast himself on his knees beside Potter and tried to stanch the flow of Potter's blood with the hem of his robe. Red leaked into black, and soon Pettigrew's hem was soaked. But Potter's bleeding did not slow.

Black yanked Severus around and pointed his wand at Severus's throat. "You filthy murderer! What have you done to him!"

Severus half-raised his wand, but Black could have cursed him into oblivion, for his brain couldn't cobble together a defensive spell. "I've never seen it like this," he babbled, "I don't know how to counter it, you've got to go for Pomfrey!"

"If you think I'm leaving Peter alone to defend James from you--"

"Stay, then!" shouted Severus. "I'll go! Unless you want him to bleed to death!"

"Bleed to death?" said Black softly. "Oh, Snape. He had better not bleed to death."

"Let him go, Sirius!" yelled Pettigrew. The blood had spread well beyond the hem of his robe. "Snape, just go!"

Severus backed away from the wand at his throat. Nothing happened. He turned and ran.

****

Under the cold light of the full moon Severus ran, until he was gulping air into his lungs in whoops, like a man just saved from drowning. He ran up the stone steps into the castle, up the marble staircase, down corridors and through the double doors of the hospital wing. He ran through the bed-filled ward, past its only patient, a small girl fast asleep, with what looked like sparrow's wings for ears.

Severus slid to a stop in front of Madam Pomfrey's office door and raised his fist. But before he banged on the door, it opened and Madam Pomfrey glared out.

"What in Merlin's name--"

"It's Remus Lupin!" gasped Severus.

For a moment, Madam Pomfrey looked utterly shocked. She glanced toward the sleeping girl, then said in a low voice, "Get in here."

Severus entered, and Madam Pomfrey shut the office door. "What about Lupin?"

"It's not about Lupin, I mean, it is partly, but I hit Potter with Sectumsempra and I can't make him stop bleeding!"

"What do you mean, you can't make him stop bleeding?"

"I--we--we got into a fight at the Whomping Willow. I hit him with this spell I invented--he's bleeding, and I don't know--I can't make it stop!"

Madam Pomfrey's eyes grew hard, but she said nothing. She went to the fireplace and threw in a handful of Floo powder. The emerald flames reared up, and Professor Dumbledore's night-capped head appeared in the grate.

"Poppy." Dumbledore's head swivelled on the edge of a log and his eyebrows went up slightly. "And Severus. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"It's no pleasure," said Madam Pomfrey shortly. "I need you to meet me at the Whomping Willow. There's been an accident. James Potter is hurt."

Still looking at Severus, Dumbledore did not answer at once. "Is Severus coming with you?" he asked after a moment.

"Yes."

"Very good. I'll see you there." Before Severus could object, Dumbledore's head vanished and the flames went out.

He objected to Madam Pomfrey instead. "But I don't know what to do! I don't know how to counter the spell!" Though he supposed his only alternative was to go back to Slytherin House, curl up in his bed and wait to be expelled, he did not want to return to Potter, to see again what he'd done.

Madam Pomfrey ignored him. Rummaging in a closet, she took out two brooms and tossed one to him. "Come on. The Headmaster's waiting."

****

When Severus and Madam Pomfrey landed on the lawn before the Whomping Willow, Professor Dumbledore was indeed there, kneeling beside Potter. Black and Pettigrew stood nearby, round-eyed and silent. The blood no longer flooded from Potter's body, and he lay so pale and still that he looked dead. But would Dumbledore pass his wand so assiduously over a corpse?

Peering around Madam Pomfrey, Severus saw blood still oozing from Potter's wounds. Dumbledore's brow was corrugated with worry, and no wonder: the gash tracking across Potter's torso looked all the uglier, now that the flow of blood no longer covered it.

Dumbledore looked up. His brow smoothed, but his face looked very drawn. "Ah, there you are, Poppy. I've already called St Mungo's. They're sending a coach. I've slowed the bleeding, but I'm afraid I can't stop it." He stood up. "Severus?"

Madam Pomfrey stepped aside. "Here he is."

Dumbledore looked at him steadily. "I've spoken to Mr Black and Mr Pettigrew. This spell is your work?"

Severus wanted to look away, but Dumbledore's eyes held him. "Yes, sir," he whispered.

Dumbledore gazed at him for several more long moments. "This is the Darkest curse I have seen cast at Hogwarts in a very long time." Finally he looked away, and he and Madam Pomfrey studied the sky, watching for the appearance of the St Mungo's coach.

Severus did not watch with them, though the wait seemed to last forever. He fixed his eyes on a patch of grass untouched by Potter's blood.

"Here it comes," said Dumbledore.

Looking up, Severus saw the St Mungo's coach sail over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and swoop to the ground. It looked like an old-fashioned Muggle horse-drawn ambulance, except that no horses drew it. It was lime-green, with the hospital insignia of a wand crossing a bone painted in glowing silver on its side. Mediwizards bustled from the rear of the coach, carrying potions-beakers, poultices and a stretcher. Madam Pomfrey joined them, and they bent over Potter, pouring potions down his throat, applying poultices to his wounds and murmuring spells.

Severus could not tell whether any of it was working. Neither, by the stricken looks on their faces, could Black and Pettigrew.

"Peter. Sirius," said Dumbledore. They looked at him. "It's late. You'd better go back to Gryffindor Tower and your beds."

"Our beds!" said Black. He cocked his head defiantly at Severus. "And what about him?"

"Severus is my affair, Sirius, not yours," said Dumbledore quietly.

Black clenched his fists, clearly infuriated. Then he looked at Potter. The mediwizards were Levitating him on the stretcher toward the rear doors of the coach. He was wrapped in blankets to his chin. His eyes were closed. His dishevelled hair looked very dark against the pillow and around his face. His glasses had been removed. Somehow, that made him look even weaker.

Grief drove the fury from Black's face. His eyes glistened. Pettigrew, also staring at Potter, seemed stupefied with terror.

"The very best that can be done for him will be done," said Dumbledore. "Now please go."

The mediwizards Levitated Potter into the coach. All but one of them followed him inside and closed the doors. Reluctantly Black and Pettigrew dragged their eyes away from the coach and walked slowly toward the castle. After a final, low-voiced conference with the remaining mediwizard, Madam Pomfrey left too.

The mediwizard mounted to the driver's seat. Professor Dumbledore opened the passenger door. "Please get in, Severus."

Severus could hear the mediwizards inside, working on Potter. He did not want to get any closer to those sounds. "Why?"

"Because James Potter cannot be healed without your help." Dumbledore glanced toward the mediwizards' sounds. "In fact, I will hazard a guess that, unless you help him, he will die."

Severus looked at his calm face. It was nearly as pale as Potter's. He didn't question the astounding claim that Dumbledore had just made. He walked past the Headmaster and climbed into the passenger seat of the St Mungo's coach. Dumbledore got in beside him and closed the door. The driver spoke a word and the coach lifted off from the ground into the star-strewn sky, toward the silvery full moon.