Morsmordre

Morsmordre

Chapter II

The Secret Garden

Snape woke to the sight of Harry Potter doing up his collar. It startled him, for the split second in which it took his mind to recall the previous day's events--but then it left only a vague resentment, burning like a stone in Snape's stomach, that he had to share even this. He wasn't used to waking up with other people--and it unsettled him, unnerved him, that someone should have seen him asleep.

Unarmed.

But Potter didn't appear interested in anything except buckling his trousers and tucking in his shirt--and even this was unsettling, watching someone else dress, but Snape wasn't about to remark on it. Firelight glinted oddly off Potter's spectacles, hiding his expression--but Snape could gather Potter's emotional state rather succinctly by the way those chapped fingers were tight with tension, by the way his shoulders were stiff under the clean white of his shirt.

Of course. Potter had to go scouting today.

Snape got up slowly, swinging his feet out from under the blankets and wincing when they met cold stone. Last night's haziness was all washed away--he felt almost painfully awake now, temple throbbing with the beginnings of a headache. Potter barely glanced at him; and something about that, about being ignored like that, got on Snape's nerves.

'How do you know that it's morning?' His voice sounded even harsher than usual, roughened by his usual early-morning growl--but Potter didn't seem unnerved.

'Wristwatch.' Potter pushed up his right sleeve for a moment, baring a wrist that had a black band around it. 'Muggle wristwatch. Undetectable by the wards.'

Potter's voice wasn't mild either--curt and to the point, and very obviously tense.

'How long since dawn?'

'It is dawn. Vera and I...'

'First thing in the morning. Scouting. Yes.'

There was a silence in which Potter leant down to do up his shoe-laces--but his fingers fumbled at it, and he cursed.

Snape couldn't resist. 'Nervous, Potter? I would have thought the Boy Who Lived would be used to risking his neck by now.'

Potter shot him a hot glare. 'Shut up, Snape.'

Snape felt an almost instinctive anger rise in him. Ah, here was the brat he was used to dealing with. No more banter at midnight. 'You will call me by my proper title, Potter.' His voice was a comfortable hiss.

Potter seemed comfortable with his spite too. His fingers steadied on his laces. 'Why? It's your name, isn't it? I called you Snape at the meeting yesterday.'

'And, if you'll recall, I wasn't too happy about it.'

'You don't call me by my proper title.'

Snape's pre-prepared insult stuttered to a halt. 'What?'

Potter rose from doing up his laces--his eyes were sharp and very much awake. 'My title. Professor Potter.'

Snape resisted the urge to scoff. 'Don't be ridiculous. I taught you--'

'Taught me?' Potter was slipping on his robe now--black against white skin, white shirt. His face was gaunt with tension. 'You taught me very little, Snape. You didn't teach me Potions. You even backed out of teaching me Occlumency.' Those fingers appeared to grow steadier with each word. 'If I owe you the title, you owe it to me too.'

'I saved your life--'

'And I saved yours back.' Potter's eyes flashed. 'At least as many times. Granted, it was after I graduated, but still... I don't owe you anything, Snape. Not a debt of life, and certainly not a debt of gratitude.'

I don't owe you anything. Hot rage soured Snape's already-dry mouth--and he felt his lips pull back in a snarl. 'Listen here, boy--'

'I'm not a boy.' Potter snapped back. His robes were done up now--his wand was in his hands and then in his pocket, and his stance was firm, and he looked ready for battle. 'And I don't have time for this.'

'Don't have time. You're not leaving here until you--'

'I'm leaving.' And Potter had turned around, patting his pocket as if to make sure, again, that he still had his wand there. 'I have scouting to do. If I'm not back in three hours, strengthen the wards and make sure the Headmaster's safe.'

'Potter!' Snape barked, something sharp and strange tangling with the rage in his chest--but then Potter had stepped out and slammed the door behind him, and the ringing sound echoed through Snape's ears, final as the clanging of a prisoner's cell, and Snape found himself sitting back down on his cot unsteadily, resting his head on shaking hands.

A quick, bright pain lanced through his temple. If I'm not back in three hours.

Fuck Potter. Fuck this. He should have offered to go with Potter again. No. He should have gone with Potter regardless.

Fucking stupid Gryffindor bravado. If I'm not back in three hours.

Of course he'd be back in three hours. The fucking fool. He owed Snape an apology.

* * *

Three hours were a surprisingly long amount of time. Snape did what he was supposed to do, of course--he washed his face and mouth in the small, self-cleaning basin by the fireplace--felt his fingers slip over day-old stubble, rough and familiar against his palms. He shaved methodically, using the kit he'd brought along with his clothes, and watched the dotted shaving foam fade into the basin's clear water again.

His mouth tasted sour even after rinsing it time and again--his teeth felt jagged and large, pushing against a sleep-furred tongue. The light in these quarters irked him--they looked exactly as they had last night, thanks to the artificial fire, and Snape felt his dry, tired eyes sagging exactly as though it were still night. There were no windows here to let in the faint light of morning--nothing at all to indicate the natural progression of time, not even the whiff of colder-than-cold, fresher-than-stale air that wafted through Snape's dungeons at dawn.

Nothing.

If I'm not back in three hours.

He took a quick dip in the self-filling tub, the cool water startling him back into his skin--and he gave himself a perfunctory rub-down with the wash-cloth, watching his wet thighs twitch like those of a horse. He got out, dripping water, and dried himself--hearing a swish behind him as the tub emptied itself.

He got dressed much as Potter had--in a hurried and vaguely business-like fashion, and nearly threw something against the wall in frustration when his own fingers fumbled at his buttons. What reason did he have to be nervous? He was only going to assist the Headmaster today. If Potter decided to go out and get his brains cooked into an omelette palatable to Dementors, it was none of Snape's business.

None at all.

If I'm not back in three hours.

Snape pushed his nearly-dry hair back from his shoulders and shrugged on his robes--and then he was leaving just as Potter had, slamming the door behind him, although he had no audience to appreciate his exit.

* * *

The meeting room--because Snape could never call this dark little hole the Headmaster's office--was only half-full when he arrived. Dumbledore himself was missing; in his place crouched Neville Longbottom, leaning over what looked to be a few bared square feet of stone, an intense expression of concentration on his face. The table had been pushed aside to make way for him--and in one of its vacant chairs sat McGonagall, hands folded tensely, watching Longbottom even though her thoughts seemed far away.

Snape didn't bother with the ubiquitous and highly inappropriate 'good morning'--instead he marched right up to Longbottom, pulling out his wand as he went, and snapped: 'May I be of assistance?'

Longbottom started and nearly fell over backwards--but he caught himself just in time, eyes wide with shock and, Snape was surprised to see, irritation.

Well. Wasn't this the day for Gryffindor superiority.

'N-no thank you, Professor Snape,' said Longbottom quietly, but firmly. 'I was just...'

'Drawing up the runes. I see.' And Snape could see--past Longbottom's heavily clothed and pudgy shoulder--the glowing of a few neatly drawn Earth Runes on the floor, where the paved stone seemed to be giving way to an ever-darkening soil, fertile and rich and scented slightly with moss.

'I won't need any more space than this,' Longbottom said softly, extracting one of his velvet pouches and jangling it despondently over the soil. 'I'm afraid we'll have to settle for bread today... I won't be able to grow anything here for at least another twelve hours.'

Snape grunted and took a seat next to Minerva--who glanced at him tiredly, pushing a plate full of dry bread his way.

'No,' she said at Snape's expression. 'There isn't any butter.'

Ah, more good news.

He picked up a piece and began eating it half-heartedly--it wasn't as bad as he'd expected, which is to say it didn't taste of mould or dust or anything unpleasant. It tasted of nothing at all. There were, thankfully, two cups of steaming tea obviously set aside for the Headmaster and Snape himself--McGonagall's and Longbottom's cups were empty. A large, squat kettle gleamed dully beside them. Snape took up a cup and sipped at it distractedly, letting the fresh aroma warm his breath.

For a moment Snape wondered if Potter had managed to grab any breakfast before leaving for the mission--but the moment he thought this Longbottom's customarily quiet voice drifted his way, asking: 'How was Harry today?'

'As can be expected,' Snape scowled. 'Stubborn and suicidally determined as usual.'

He was surprised to see something like a smile tug the corners of Longbottom's mouth, and a similar expression lighten McGonagall's otherwise stern face.

'I see,' Minerva said, reaching for a piece of bread. 'He's all right, then.'

Snape resisted the urge to either sputter or roll his eyes. Gryffindors never did make any sense to him--and, Merlin help him, he was trapped in a room with two of them. He suddenly longed for Vector's Ravenclaw, if rather irritating, presence.

'How is Vector?' He asked, not so much out of concern as out of curiosity.

'Just as determined as Harry usually is,' McGonagall replied. 'I offered to accompany her today, along with Harry, but she refused...'

'Potter refused my assistance as well,' Snape said darkly, nearly crumbling the bread in his hands as his knuckles whitened. 'Young fools, the both of them.'

McGonagall looked faintly surprised. 'Oh, I'm sure they'll manage all right, Severus. We offered to help them out of concern for their well-being,'--Snape resisted the urge to sputter again--'but they are both trained enough to handle scouting on their own.'

If they're so capable, Snape thought, why do you look like you're going to leap out of your seat at the slightest noise?

But he didn't say this, of course--and he realized that he and McGonagall must make quite the pair, eyes dark-ringed and faces pale, both twitchy with tension and both pretending not to be.

Longbottom, however, seemed blissfully absorbed in drawing more runes with the tip of his wand. He looked, Snape mused, like nothing more than a slightly mad and somewhat grubby wizard playing noughts and crosses in the dirt.

Just as he was about to snort quietly in appreciation of his own joke, the door swung open.

Everyone--even Longbottom--whipped around instantly--but it was only Dumbledore, holding what appeared to be an extraordinarily wide scroll tied with a scarlet ribbon.

'Good morning!' Dumbledore twinkled at them as he swept in, and Snape nearly winced at the exclamation that could, at any point, be proven wrong. What if Potter... What if Vector...

But Dumbledore had already begun untying the scarlet ribbon, spreading the ludicrously large scroll across their small table. 'I apologize for my tardiness,' he was saying, 'but it took me a while to dig this up from among my hastily packed belongings...'

Snape was positive that none of Dumbledore's belongings were 'hastily packed', and he knew that Dumbledore had most likely deliberately left them to spend ten or fifteen minutes to talk to each other without his presence.

Kind captain, indeed. Snape's hackles rose at being thus patronized--but then he saw what the scroll contained, in its intricate lines and geometric shapes, and all inappropriate thoughts vanished from his mind.

'It's Hogwarts,' Longbottom breathed, getting up from the floor and leaning over the scroll, dirt-smudged palms resting carefully on the edge of table, far away from the parchment's borders.

'A map of Hogwarts,' McGonagall corrected in an equally hushed voice.

Dumbledore smiled. 'Exactly.' He ran a loving, wrinkled palm down the equally wrinkled parchment. 'I do wish we had something like Harry's Marauder's Map to assist us...'

Snape felt his mouth curling as he recalled that famous Leaving Feast debacle in Potter's seventh year, and the satisfaction of finally having confiscated the damn map--only to have it reduced to bitter disappointment when he had to return it to its owner no more than two years later, when Potter returned to teach.

'... but I'm afraid that those maps work with detection charms, and we can't afford to have the Death Eaters notice us casting such charms on them. We'll have to make do with this ancient original, alas... This senses nothing but the current architectural state of Hogwarts.'

'The moving staircases and rooms as well?' Snape was surprised to hear his own voice ask--he couldn't look away from the thin blue lines of the map, as tenderly drawn and branching as veins.

'Oh, yes.'

Before their eyes one of the slender blue lines melted and moved to realign itself, creating what appeared to be a new room just next to the Hufflepuff dormitories.

'Beautiful,' McGonagall whispered, and Snape was forced to agree--this was an original, an ancient, hand-drawn map, magic woven carefully into each and every ink-darkened line. It might be primitive by modern standards, but it had that sense of ancient magic about it, its paper wrinkled and yet shining with age, scented with dust, as delicate and easily torn as skin.

There was a brief, almost sacred silence--and Snape felt himself grow uncomfortable with it, as he did with any show of sentimentality that lasted far too long for his tastes. That is to say, any longer than an easily masked instant.

'Are we going to use it to plan our exit from this hell-hole, or are we going to stare at it all day?' He snapped finally, patience at an end, and both McGonagall and Longbottom started as though emerging from a lull.

Dumbledore glanced at him reproachfully. 'Indeed we are, Severus. Unfortunately we won't be able to make much use of it until Harry and Vera come back with their information,'--Snape and McGonagall both tensed--'but we can see from where we will begin deactivating the wards once we manage to escape.' His gnarled but entirely steady finger pointed to the level just below the dungeons, the level two floors above theirs. 'This is where the base wards are set, as we all know. Rather like the soil at the root of a plant,' here Dumbledore smiled at Longbottom, 'these are the wards that then feed and support the wards set at the higher levels of Hogwarts.'

Snape felt himself fidgeting through this brief and entirely useless summary--well, not useless for Longbottom, since Longbottom hadn't been here two years ago when he, Vector, Potter and Flitwick had assisted in shifting and upgrading Hogwarts' wards. 'So if we have to break the wards, we only have to make it as far as the lower levels.' And die, Snape added silently.

'Um.' Longbottom pointed a tentative finger at the map's periphery. 'How can we be sure that the Order hasn't already been... um...'

'Defeated?' Snape cut in scathingly. 'We can't. All we have is the last piece of intelligence that was delivered to us before we retreated--the Order has just arrived outside of Hogwarts, but unable to enter because of Voldemort's new wards.'

'And the longer they are unable to enter, the stronger the wards become,' Dumbledore's voice was suddenly tired, but his eyes were sharp when they landed on Snape. 'Which is why it is imperative that we break the wards as soon as possible. We have to give the Order a chance, because they are our only chance.'

'Will it not be difficult,' McGonagall interjected slowly, 'to undo the wards in one try? I do not think one mission to the lower levels will be sufficient. We will need to scout first...'

Bloody Minerva and her scouting. Potter's out there because of... 'It will be nigh impossible to survive the first attempt at the wards.' Snape's voice was sharp. 'I don't think--'

'Professor McGonagall isn't suggesting we try to break the wards the first time.' Longbottom, leaning forward and surprisingly bold. A Gryffindor to the defence of his Head of House, eh? 'We just need to chart what the wards are like, and then find our way back so that we can work out how to break them. Two missions--one for scouting and one for doing--isn't that right, Professor?'

McGonagall nodded, smiling.

Snape scowled. 'A second mission means double the exposure. I doubt we can make it through the first one. We should approach the wards under the assumption that we will not have the luxury to return--if we assume this, our plans are likely to be more accurate. In a perfect world,' he barely refrained from saying in a Gryffindor world, 'we might have two chances--and yes, it is possible, distantly so, that we might. But it is more likely that we will not, and we should be prepared for it.'

Longbottom's face had drained of colour somewhere in the midst of this speech--and Snape felt a small, vicious twinge of triumph at it, but it quickly faded in the face of Dumbledore's hard gaze.

'Severus is a pragmatist, as always,' the Headmaster said blandly, 'and, in a sense, he is right.'

Ha!

'But we should be prepared for both scenarios.'

Damn.

'It will be easier than it appears, Minerva, to undo the wards in one try--you were on leave when we last changed them, so you might be unfamiliar with... hmm.' Dumbledore circled the boundary of Hogwarts with his finger, a darker edge of ink on the map that surrounded the central structure like a glass bowl. 'These are the base wards. Yes? The Death Eaters have modified them entirely, so that there is very little left of the original runic boundary. But it's still susceptible from the inside, you see, because these wards were built one-way, intended to target only intruders instead of residents. Unlike the first version you helped us set up nine years ago, Minerva...'

McGonagall's expression cleared immediately, but Longbottom still looked somewhat befuddled. As was to be expected.

Snape sighed. 'It is similar to sliding a lock into place when one enters a room. The lock cannot be opened from the outside, but it is of course susceptible to anyone who can slide it back out of place from the inside.'

'And the Death Eaters don't expect that we're on the inside, along with them!' Longbottom's face lit up with excitement. 'They haven't--well--they haven't probably--locked the wards from the inside. Since they're among friends, they know that no one would undo them...'

'Precisely.' Snape curled what he thought was a smile at Longbottom, but the boy paled and shut up nonetheless. Oh, well. Perhaps just looking at Snape in general did that to him, or perhaps Snape hadn't lost his habit of sneering at Longbottom, and his faces simply refused to produce any other expression when dealing with him.

'So it shouldn't take more than one mission to undo the wards... I see what you mean, Severus.' McGonagall's tone was grudging, but not bitter at all--and Snape wondered at it, this capacity to stand corrected without feeling angered, without feeling the need to lash out.

Gryffindors.

Unfathomable.

'But it is possible that we might need to return,' he admitted in turn, surprising himself. 'Just as Albus said, we should have a plan for both contingencies. Of course, our chances of coming back will depend on how well-numbered the guards are...'

'And we won't know that until Harry and Vera get back.' Longbottom sighed.

McGonagall tensed.

Snape took a sip of tea. Calmly. His fingers weren't painfully tight around the handle. Of course they weren't. It had only been two and a half hours since dawn, after all--Potter had said three...

Dumbledore was watching them all keenly. 'Indeed. But we have, at least, a map that they can show us their discoveries on--and we now know which level to target when we do make it past the guards Harry and Vera find. It will be... difficult,'--impossible, Snape corrected silently--'to return through the Death Eaters undetected after we break the wards,'--if we break the wards, Snape corrected again--'since they will then know that we are here. But the wards would have been broken, and that is all we need know--that is all the Order will need to break through and reclaim Hogwarts.'

Meaning that we will die before we can reap the results of our own victory. Joy.

Neither McGonagall nor Longbottom seemed to have interpreted that speech as Snape had, however. Their shoulders had straightened and their eyes had brightened--and Snape, who suddenly had the urge to massage his temples in frustration, thought: More lambs to the slaughter. Or should I say lions?

Just then there was a sudden swelling of light from beyond the table--and Snape was leaping up with his wand out even as Longbottom leapt up as well--but Longbottom's cry was a cry of delight, and the hex on Snape's lips faltered. The runes on Longbottom's little patch of earth were an incandescent green now--a green that recalled some rather unpleasant memories for Snape, but Longbottom was leaning over them with a fond smile on his face.

'Look!' He beckoned the others over--McGonagall and Dumbledore went willingly, but Snape approached warily, not quite pocketing his wand.

He did pocket it, though, once he saw for himself what had made the runes glow.

It was a plant.

Or rather, a tendril.

Severus Snape, although he may have faced many enemies in battle, was not amenable to hexing plants.

Unless they were carnivorous, of course.

Judging by the way Longbottom lifted the frail bud tenderly, this plant was far from carnivorous.

'Exubero,' Longbottom whispered, winding one of the green runes around his wand like a thread, and weaving it around the tendril with swift, expert and--frankly--elegant strokes. The rune tightened around the slight stalk like a vine, pulling it upwards, and Snape found himself holding his breath as he watched what had once been a small, weak little thing, barely taller than a blade of grass, grow thicker and greener. A leaf uncurled from the growing stem like a petal, delicate and moist and glistening, followed by another, followed by another, followed by another.

'Astonishing,' McGonagall murmured, pushing her glasses up her nose and leaning closer.

Snape, although he would never admit it aloud, agreed.

Longbottom's face glowed with a quiet pride--and it was a strange sight for Snape, who had never seen Longbottom at work, had never deigned to, even though he had accepted the potion ingredients Longbottom harvested in a dubious and somewhat cautious way.

Snape, of course, would never admit that he was wrong.

But he didn't contradict Longbottom's smile either, or the hesitantly triumphant look the boy shot his way.

Dumbledore chuckled. 'It looks as though Hogwarts is trying to help, Neville--this is a lot sooner than one would expect, isn't it?'

'Oh, yes,' Longbottom grinned and brushed the hair away from his plump face, landing himself yet another smudge of dirt below his ear. 'I'd thought at least twelve hours before something like this happened, but...' He gestured all-encompassingly. 'Hogwarts is lending me more energy, and at a faster rate than I expected.' The grin widened. 'Only four more hours now, I think, before we have something other than bread to eat...' He gestured towards the tendril. 'This one's Malus pumila. It'll yield apples.'

Apples. Snape's stomach was tempted to growl at the thought--but he quietened it as sternly as he did his students.

Longbottom was looking raptly at the glowing runes again. 'My very own secret garden,' he said softly, but he didn't see the looks of confusion on everyone else's faces as he leaned forward to whisper 'Foveo', ostensibly to raise the temperature around the tendril and encourage a seasonal bloom. Snape was hardly an expert, but he was well-read enough in weather-spell semantics. And the air around the plant must indeed have warmed, because a light mist of steam started to rise from the soil in a close circle around it. Another rune was guided to enclose the area, cutting it off from foreign temperature changes.

Longbottom got up, dusted off his knees--an exercise in futility, because his robes appeared to be permanently stained--and beamed.

Snape tried not to blink at seeing that look on Longbottom's face while Snape himself was in the same room.

'Well, all we've got to do now is wait fo--'

But he was cut short by the slamming open of the door--and before he knew it Snape had whipped around and pointed his wand at the intruders, shielding Dumbledore with his body.

He lowered it an instant later. Potter and Vector staggered in, faces almost extraordinarily pale. Snape's first thought was: blood loss, and he was stepping forward and grabbing Potter by the arm before anyone else even had a chance to blink.

'Where are you wounded?' He asked urgently, running harsh hands down Potter's arms and chest--but Potter was stumbling backwards, shaking his head, gasping--'Not--not wounded. Not.'

Snape released him and Potter collapsed into one of the chairs, Vector also sliding into one bonelessly.

Dumbledore and McGonagall had rushed forward in a welter of concerned questions, but the scouts waved them off. Longbottom, showing more presence of mind than Snape liked to give him credit for, was filling two more cups of tea from the kettle on the table.

Vector nearly scalded her tongue in eagerness when a cup was handed to her--but Potter only held his tightly, eyes dark and jaw tense. 'It's worse than Death Eaters as guards,' he said finally, voice firm but slightly tremulous around the edges. He set his cup aside without sipping it and laughed shakily. 'I can't just sneak by in my Invisibility Cloak.'

'More than a hundred of them,' Vector interjected, setting her own cup aside with trembling hands. 'A hundred...'

Suddenly the pieces came together in Snape's mind--the symptoms of blood loss, the shakiness, the appearance of trauma.

'Dementors,' he said loudly, clearly--and everyone but Potter and Vector whipped around to stare at him.

Potter smiled at him tightly. 'You've got it in one, Snape.'

Snape didn't even notice the use of his name, the cause of their argument this morning. The room seemed to have frozen--as if the Dementors' chill had descended all the way here--and then Dumbledore was sitting down carefully, face calm and thoughtful, and Longbottom sat down next to him, expression fixed in an odd mixture of fierceness and panic.

McGonagall seemed to be unable to sit down altogether--her arms were folded tightly, eyes narrow and sharp. 'More than a hundred of them,' she said finally.

Vector wiped her mouth against her sleeve and looked up. 'Yes.'

'Well, wh--'

'I think we should give them some time to recover before they make their reports, don't you think?' Dumbledore cut in mildly--and McGonagall startled, a guilty look immediately crossing her face. She went to sit down beside Vector, laying a thin hand on her arm--and Vector seemed to warm at it, more than she had at the tea, an uncertain smile curving her mouth.

Potter had his elbows on the table and was leaning his head on his hands, eyes closed tightly--and Snape could only imagine what it must be like to approach a hundred Dementors without being allowed to cast so much as a single Patronus. For a brief instant Potter's face rippled with something like grief--and Snape wondered what fear or memory the Dementors had forced to the surface--but then Potter's jaw clenched and his shoulders firmed, and he looked up with an expression too pale to be called fearless, but not lacking in a certain courage nonetheless.

Something odd twisted in Snape's stomach at that sight, so familiar after years of fighting the same war--and without realizing it he was leaning forward to push Potter's cup of tea forward again, and Potter shot him a surprised and grateful glance.

Vector had also gathered herself by now--and Potter nodded at her, reaching for his cup with steady hands this time. He took a few sips of tea before setting it back down--and then he looked up at Dumbledore, gaze unwavering.

'We're ready to make our report.'

* END OF CHAPTER TWO *