A Merciless Affection

Chapter 58: Before It's Too Late

To:

Miriam Snape

Knockturn Alley

London

My dear Mrs. Snape,

It was with the greatest distress that I learned of Severus' disappearance. Alas, I fear I have no better news for you. He has not returned to Hogwarts, wounded or otherwise, and the item you referred to is not here.

I have confirmed that he neither is nor has been a patient at St. Mungo's. The apparent death of Isaac Connor, which you reported in your second letter, sheds but little light. Indeed, my hopes are as reduced by it as your own: if he had triumphed, he ought to have reappeared at once. Still, we must not abandon hope altogether.

Be assured that I am employing every means at my disposal to locate your nephew. Do not--I repeat DO NOT--risk your own health in pursuit of this matter. You would do him no service by it. And if the worst has come to pass, your position must remain uncompromised. Use more caution now than ever.

Albus Dumbledore

All through the morning Mass, Sarah clutched the folded sheet of parchment in her pocket, a tangible focus for her prayers for Severus' safety. No...for his very life. Miriam and Cornelia had brought her to church with the conviction that, at worst, praying was better than worrying, and at best, it might do some good, if not to the missing man, then to the forlorn girl he had left behind.

The letter had arrived with the dawn's light. Miriam had been reading it with a taut expression when Sarah had stirred from her restless sleep. The message--despite the ostensible address--was clearly intended for Sarah. Use more caution, the headmaster had warned--a stinging criticism, even if it was a fair one. The very fact that Sarah would write to Dumbledore in this situation would make her loyalties plain.

Not that she needed to carry any further burdens of guilt with her this morning. Even last night's Dark magic--arguably the greater sin--paled in comparison to the simple, foolish act that had permitted Connor to take Severus from her. From that, she felt, there could be no absolution. And if she were forced, as the headmaster had hinted, to carry on Severus' work by herself, every groveling bow before the Dark Lord, every poison or harmful potion she had to make, every moment of horror she witnessed or took part in, would be a just punishment.

At any rate, whether her fate was deserved or not, there was nothing else she could do. The Dark Lord's interest in her would not cease, no matter what had happened to Severus. She might well be ordered now to take a place in the Dark Lord's entourage, keeping company with that horrible little man, Pettigrew, displayed like a trophy before the Death Eaters, forced to play in their game of hierarchical scrabbling just to stay alive. And that would be the least of it. Severus had always kept her shielded, as best he could. Now nothing stood between her and the fact that she was tangled in a terrible web, with flight or death as the only means of escape.

Was flight an option anymore? Such thoughts of her future--of her child's future--might drive her to it, even if it left Dumbledore's Order without a spy in the enemy camp. But what if Severus were not dead? Her heart leapt, half in hope, half in despair. Her departure, at this juncture, would reveal her as a traitor to the Dark Lord. And if Severus somehow still lived, he would face deep mistrust and severe punishment for his young wife's duplicity. He would likely--as he had long feared--be ordered to find her and to kill her.

No, she could not run from her troubles. Even the brief respites she had from her grief gave little real comfort. The chanted words of the priest, the kindly-meant chatter of Miriam and Cornelia as they took her home, the other members of Severus' family who hovered around her from moment to moment were like cotton wool around her mind: protective, and yet stifling.

* * *

"Tant Sawah!" Melanie rushed at her from the door. Flora and Martin slipped in behind their toddler.

Sarah let the little girl clamber up on what was left of her lap, even though the burden in her arms only made the weight on her heart seem heavier. Severus might never see his own child.

After Jacob arrived, bringing a battered-looking table that was large enough that it had to be spelled through the doorway, the tiny flat was much, much too crowded. A flurry of activity erupted, as were chairs carried in. Baskets were brought in as well--one was already on Flora's arm, and others appeared after Miriam and Cornelia nipped out for a minute. Almost before Sarah could realize or object, a family luncheon was being held in her kitchen.

What Severus would have thought of this invasion of his household, Sarah could only guess. The talk was forcedly cheerful, as if everyone had agreed that Her Spirits Must Be Kept Up. But imagining the expression on Severus' face, if he should suddenly walk in, was far more cheering, even if it also brought tears to her eyes.

She had no appetite, although she poked and picked at her food to prevent them from fretting over her. She had spent most of her life protected from excessive attention, and such a concentrated outpouring of concern was almost overwhelming. What had been comforting at first was beginning to chafe. This great clamor in what had always been a quiet and private space made her painfully aware of the utter lack of privacy--physical, mental, or emotional--that she had endured for the past two days. She loved the people in this room...but she wished right now that she could simply order them out.

When Nick started talking about Quidditch at just the same moment when her abdomen, as it was doing with greater frequency, unexpectedly tightened again, Sarah could not bear the situation any longer. She retreated to the bedroom, sick at the thought she might have offended them all, but not sorry for going. It was only a short time before Miriam, predictably, opened the door Sarah had shut behind her.

"I just want to be alone for a while," Sarah pleaded, before the older woman could say anything.

"I thought you might have come to that point." Miriam's expression, so often taut with worry of late, softened into weary understanding. "I'll send them home as soon as I can manage it."

"Can you get everyone to go?" Sarah's shoulders sagged. She was being horribly ungrateful, but she truly could not bear it anymore. "Could...could you go? And Cornelia? I just need to be by myself for a while."

Miriam frowned slightly, studying her with sharp eyes, her hands twitching slightly as if she felt the impulse to check on the child again, although she had done so just a few hours ago. Her mouth tightened as she seemed to weigh the benefits and dangers of Sarah's request. But finally she nodded. "Use a ward I can break, if need be. I'll set someone to watching outside--you've only to shout out the window for help."

"Thank you," Sarah said. It was heartfelt, although it irked her a little to feel that she was still being guarded. At least it would be from afar, even if was only across the street. A sensible precaution, she had to admit. Not that Devin or Nick or Jacob were likely to actually try to rescue her--not if it were Death Eaters who showed up at her door to take her to the Dark Lord for questioning.

* * *

It seemed to Sarah as if she had lain there for more than an hour before the sounds from the other room faded to those of just one person. Miriam opened the bedroom door again.

"If you want to keep still, I'll set the ward from the outside," she suggested.

Sarah nodded. "Thank you," she repeated.

"I know, cherub. I know."

The footsteps faded across the outer room, the door there clicked shut, and Miriam's voice spoke sharply and quickly, raising the wards. Then silence--or as much of it as they ever had in the flat. But the world was at bay. That, for now, was all that mattered.

In the silence, it was almost possible to pretend that the last two days had never happened. That Severus would soon arrive back from Hogwarts, and life would go on as they had planned. But it would not. He would not. He already had come back. And gone away again. To his death?

Sarah let herself cry, as she had not cried since that first night. But it did not last as long. Now, without Miriam or Cornelia dampening her every movement, she could do something for herself, and she felt compelled to do it while she had the chance.

She looked first for the safe box. It must be here, somewhere. But even painful scrabbling on her knees to look under the bed and inside the back of the wardrobe yielded no better result than the others' searches. Cornelia had already prodded all the stones of the fireplace, looking in the one spot toward which Severus might have been pointing with his eyes; she had found nothing, but that did not prevent Sarah from running her hands over the stones again, feeling for a trigger or a loose stone. Which wasn't there.

She pressed on into the kitchen area, but the cupboards offered up nothing more than the scrambled results of Cornelia's attempt to straighten up the flat. Frustrated at her inability to find the one thing Severus had asked her to, Sarah began rearranging the remaining ingredients, placing jars back where they belonged. Every jar that should have been there left its gap in her heart as well as in the cupboard; it was her own fault--if she had not opened that door, no ingredients would be missing. Nor would Severus.

Could she replace everything? Did she have enough in her Gringotts vault now? Would her solicitor consider this a reasonable need, and grant her more?

Was it reasonable to feel that if she could return the potions stores to normal, Severus would come back, too?

She could begin, at least. She drew out a slip of parchment and began making a list of all the things that needed to be replaced. She wouldn't dare to go to any of the apothecary shops in Knockturn without Miriam at her elbow, but out in Diagon.... Although, she realized, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, I would have to get past my guard to go anywhere.

Discouraged, she set the list aside. With a shopping trip out of the question--it was, she realized abruptly, Sunday at any rate--she went on tidying, arranging things to her own satisfaction, not Cornelia's. It seemed ungrateful to be annoyed. But Sarah wanted things as they had always been.

When she finished straightening the cupboards, she went back in the bedroom and started on her trunk. The clothing had been unpacked only gradually, as she wore something from the trunk, then put it away in the wardrobe. With her school clothes obsolete, and so many things no longer fitting at all, there had been no reason yet to take them out. But once the baby came, she would need those things again. She might as well deal with them now as later.

She set her school clothes aside--they might bring a few Knuts at a secondhand shop. She put the ordinary clothes in another pile on the bed; they could be put away in the wardrobe. But then she began finding other things. Her old white nightgown with the hem ripped off. The poppet. When she pulled out a decrepit pair of knickers, a tiny vial tumbled out. All the evidence of her relationship with Severus Snape.

There was one more thing--a bottle of ink. She had moved it from her bookbag to her trunk after she had returned from her uncle's house, determined that she wouldn't need to communicate by that means ever again. She picked it up now, startled by the realization that she might have had the means of contacting Severus that she had denied to Connor, startled by hope that.... But no. She did not know where Severus had hidden this bottle's mate--probably still at Hogwarts--but it was certain that he would not have carried it on his person. Not after they had long since ceased to use it.

The black abyss that had been ever-present inside her these last two days, sometimes gaping wider, more often receding at the sound of her protectors' voices, opened suddenly into a terrible maw, a hole into which she must fall. She hunched over, feeling as if she were collapsing in upon herself.

She was not sure how she got up onto the bed. Only that it seemed better that she not sprawl on the floor. She lay there, with limbs made of lead, while an anguish such as she had never known poured through her soul. As horrible as she had felt at her parents' deaths, that grief had been nothing like this blinding, agonizing pain.... She had been the cause of her lover's death. Probably. If only she knew whether he were dead or alive, instead of this helpless, endless waiting, teetering on the edge between hope and grief! But she had, unquestionably, been the cause of her aunt's death. She was responsible, in some sense, for her parents' deaths as well: if not for her...if she had been less willing to be her father's beloved daughter, her mother might never have left him...might never have betrayed him to the Aurors...would never have gotten that horrible note, along with that terrible bottle of poison she had used to end her life. Sarah should have taken it and hid it...should have told Aunt Portia about it...should never have gone to Hogwarts, leaving her mother without a reason to go on living.

Do I have any reason to go on living now? Mired in guilt...trapped in the fond affection of a powerful madman...with worse unquestionably yet to come....

The baby, answered a tiny, desperate voice of reason, amidst all the chaos of her thoughts. Severus's son.

What world would I deliver him into? the dark unreason of her thoughts asked. I have made him a pawn of the Dark Lord. He might well grow up wanting to serve the darkness of his own free will. Better to die with me, unborn, than that.

Better to die...that was all the sum of it: what the agony demanded...what the inner abyss into which she was endlessly falling both threatened as its torture and promised as her deliverance.

Dear God, is this how my mother felt?

With some tiny sliver of good sense, she knew it was a cheat. If the soul was immortal, death would not put an end to her pain. And she had no poison in her hand, and no strength of will to move from where she lay, not even to rise and find one. But if she had....

Would she drink it? Truly? She had drunk the potion Severus had given her that one night, believing it might be her death, even if she had hoped it would not. And she had felt only numbness inside, then, not this agony....

How could her mother not have drunk it, sooner or later? With her husband's last words before her eyes, her husband's last gift at hand?

My own dear Julia (and most dear to me you have proven indeed!),

You must know that, by the time you read this, it will be far too late to reconsider your choices. But I know you--and you will feel in your soul what you have done, if you do not already. And to think that you considered my hands unclean!

Consider this: all too soon, Sarah will grow old enough to force you to explain yourself. What will you feel then, when she sees your weak, treacherous and deceitful nature? What will you feel when you look into her eyes and see her hatred of you? Never doubt it will be there, Julia. In trying to keep her from me, you have given her back to me already.

I can imagine your regret, eating at you like a canker. I can imagine how painful it must be to live, Julia, even to want to live, knowing the way you have betrayed the man to whom you swore your life and loyalty. The father of your child. Although you must see now that she would better off an orphan indeed than to have a mother such as you.

I will be kinder than you have been, and grant you a means to end your pain. Keep this vial close by you, for I know, in time, you will want it. I do not promise it will be painless or quick. But for what you have done to me, done to us, done to our child, it is far better than you deserve.

Sarah had sat reading it over and over, unbelieving, because the man who had written it and the woman for whom it was intended were not the parents she knew. When her mother had come in and snatched the note out of her hand, then burst into tears as she read it, Sarah had panicked, desperate both to reassure and to be reassured. And her mother had reassured her--at what cost to herself Sarah had only vaguely understood, then.

She understood it better, now. If her mother had felt this way from the moment she had read the letter, or at least from the moment she had learned of Malcolm's death....

But, Sarah thought, an older, angrier pain reasserting itself, she ought not to have made it come true! Sarah had not turned against her mother, the way her father had predicted. And if Julia Darkglass had lived, would Sarah ever have taken that first fatalistic step into this hazardous relationship? A relationship that had led her into much the same place as she would have ended up if her father's fondest and most terrible hopes for his daughter had come true.

Borne up by a flood from some unexpected well of strength or fountain of sanity, Sarah found herself on solid ground again, instead of falling into that endless abyss of pain. She had told Severus over and over that she was not her mother, fearing all the while that the similarity was true. But she knew now that it was not. Not, she had to confess, that the fatal impulse was gone. But she would not succumb to it out of a sense of guilt or shame, as her mother had. Her father had chosen death--even if it had not been by his own hand--for another reason, preferring it to living on terms he found intolerable. And Sarah's own situation was...miserable, yes...terrifying. But intolerable? Was it, while it was still possible, however remotely, that Severus was alive? Or while she still had the power to help prevent the one thing that she would have found truly intolerable: to live without hope under the Dark Lord's pitiless and immortal reign?

Slowly, strength came back to Sarah's limbs. But action was of no use. She needed to think, damn it! How could Connor be dead, but Severus still missing? They had already considered the obvious answer--that Severus had been seriously injured or killed in the duel. It was not entirely unheard of for duels to end in the death of both wizards. But that was an answer without hope. Even if Severus were simply injured, if it was serious enough to prevent him from contacting Professor Dumbledore, then the chances of finding him in time to save his life were vanishingly small. Where would Connor have taken Severus?

How, for that matter, had he managed to create that set of Portkeys? Connor was hardly a well-trained wizard. He had been a child of Knockturn Alley, learning--catch-as-catch-can--whatever bits of useful magic he could pick up. Portkeys, however, were both a sophisticated form of magic--an upper N.E.W.T.-level Charm that not everyone could master--and also of limited use: anyone who could Apparate--as Connor clearly could--would not need one. Of course, Connor might have got the Portkeys from someone else...more likely extorted than purchased, since the man appeared to be poorer than they were.

Unless...the thought jolted into Sarah's mind...unless someone else were involved willingly. Someone who had reason to want Severus dead.

"I'm not finished with you!" Bella had said that, in this very flat. Bella--whose plans for Sarah had been ruined, whose place at the Dark Lord's side had been diminished; she was not the sort to own up to her own failures in those things: she would lay the blame squarely at Severus' feet. And with the Dark Lord's anger ready to fall upon anyone who interfered with his most valuable spy, who could blame Bella for preferring to use an agent to do her dirty work.

"Who said I was going to hurt him personally?" Sarah had tried to get the sound of Connor's hateful voice out of her mind. And she had assumed, at the time he'd said it, that he meant to destroy Severus's reputation and career. But if Bella had hired him.... "You think I give a fig for your money, now?" No, he would not--not if he had been promised a generous payment by someone else. Someone who would want very much to hurt Severus for herself.

Sarah shuddered, sitting up in a sudden panic. If Severus had been at Bella's mercy for two days.... And she would never let him live, in the end--not with the Dark Lord's certain displeasure hanging over her head, should he ever hear of the matter. But Bella had made sure there would be no reason for suspicion to ever fall upon her. Severus had disappeared after leaving to duel with a known childhood enemy--even Sarah would have to corroborate that. And the agent Bella had used--that very same childhood enemy....

Was dead. Connor could never demand payment or threaten blackmail or tell a dangerous and possibly valuable tale to his Master.

Sarah scrambled to her feet. If there was to be any hope of Severus' survival, she would have to act quickly.

Except--she realized, stopping short--she had no idea where Bellatrix might be. She sank back down on the edge of the bed with a stunned whimper. Even if she told Dumbledore who Severus's captor was, they were no closer to finding him than before.

Only one person, in fact, could find Bella, or call her to account. Sarah's blood ran cold. The Dark Lord, who could summon the woman by means of her Dark Mark, who could get the truth from her by Legilimency or torture.

It was a terrible thing to actually want to speak with the Dark Lord, although Sarah would have done it in a moment, for Severus' sake. But she had no means of seeking him out; Severus had been her only link. She had last seen the Dark Lord at Notting Chase, but there was no reason to think he would have remained there. He moved frequently. And after Fiona's displeasing behavior, he would likely have decided that the Notts were unworthy even to play his hosts. Only a Death Eater, through the magic imbued in the Dark Mark, would be able to Apparate to him, wherever he now was, to carry her message. And whom among the Death Eaters, apart from Severus, could she trust?

There was only one possible answer: Chester. He had no reason to love Severus, but he might still have enough affection for his cousin to carry her humble request for an audience to the Dark Lord. As soon as the thought formed, she was in motion. She pulled out the wand Miriam had brought to her last night--nothing so good as her own, but better than nothing at all--and lifted the block on the Floo. She felt a twinge of fear for her baby, in spite of Fiona's Unbreakable Vow, but she saw no other choice. She took a pinch of Floo Powder, noting as she did so that there was hardly any left in the tin; they had been running low already, and Connor had probably knocked it over in his rampage. But she could do nothing about that now. She cast the pinchful down, and said distinctly, "Notting Chase."

There was a flurry of green flame, and the usual whooshing sensation of Floo travel, but a moment later, Sarah found herself coughing at the churned-up ash on her own hearth.

What went wrong? Could she possibly have made a mistake lifting the ward with the unfamiliar wand? Or was the remaining Floo Powder contaminated? But then, nothing should have happened at all. It took a moment more for Sarah to realize it: the Floo connection at Notting Chase had been completely blocked, with not even the usual Fire Call opening enabled.

Why on earth...?

Then, suddenly, it all came clear--the truth glimpsed in a horrible moment, as if illuminated by a flash of lightning. Bella, fugitive that she was, had no place she could call her own. No place that would afford her the privacy that would be necessary in order to make Severus Snape disappear painfully from the face of the earth. There were, admittedly, other possibilities--abandoned buildings, caves--where Bellatrix might hold and torture a captive. But Bella was a woman of Sarah's own class, and the inherent squalor of such a place would not appeal to her nearly so much as a manor house, with its well-designed dungeons, so convenient to the refinement of the drawing room.

Bellatrix might be able to bully her sister Narcissa into permitting her to use her home for the purpose. But Narcissa might also be wary of angering the Dark Lord any further. And she probably still harbored some hope that Severus would protect Draco at school. Her fear for her son was so intense, and Bella's sympathy for her so slight, Narcissa might even betray her sister to the Dark Lord, if she felt it would soften his stance toward Draco.

But there was one person in perfect sympathy with Bella about Severus Snape. A person who was already aware of Connor's hatred for the man. A person who probably knew how to contact Connor, and who might have offered to make an old debt good if he provided his assistance in the plan. A person--and Sarah remembered, with a chill, how curious it had seemed that Connor had refrained so carefully from hurting her--yes, a person who would have very good reason to insist strongly that the man do nothing that might harm the child that she had made an Unbreakable Vow to protect.

Fiona Nott.

Was, then, Bellatrix even a part of the plot? Whether or not she was hardly seemed to matter now. Not now that Sarah felt sure that she knew where Severus had been taken. Where he was being held, at this very moment, if he had not already been killed.

* * *

The question of what to do next left Sarah stymied for a moment. Notting Chase, as she had reason to know for herself, was virtually unassailable. At least by a young and heavily pregnant woman using a low-quality wand. Possibly even by a small knot of men from Knockturn Alley, assuming that Caius or his step-sons would be willing to attack the home of a known Death Eater, even for Severus' sake.

Professor Dumbledore? Surely he had good reason to rally every means at his disposal to rescue one of his teachers. But Sarah did not think she had time to contact the headmaster by owl--every lost minute might make a difference for Severus. She knew that it was impossible to Floo into the school, due to the wards. Even Fire Calls (according to the Weasley twins, who always seemed to know more about such things than they should) were theoretically limited to those originating inside the school--much to the relief, no doubt, of students with excessively fussy parents. But it did not help her.

Out of desperation, she raised her wand. She had heard Severus speak the incantation. Perhaps concentrating on sending the magical ghost bird with the desired message would be enough. "Expecto Patronum!"

Nothing happened. Not that she had really expected it to. But there was nary so much as a flicker from her wand.

What now? she thought, in rising panic.

She had asked Severus for options once, for this very kind of situation. What had he said? The Auror Office--the very place she needed help from anyway, in order to breach the spells that protected Notting Chase. But even if the office was manned over the weekend, she was sure that a lot of questions would be asked before the poor sod who had pulled that duty would call in reinforcements. Questions that might be very difficult to answer.

As a last resort, Severus had told her, she could go to the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade. What kind of assistance would be forthcoming, he had never indicated. His tone, when he had spoken of it, had suggested it was truly the very last place she might want to try to get help. Even if she Floo'ed there directly, there was no promise of the necessary speed to help Severus in time. Was there no other solution--one less desperate?

Oh...yes! She knew two Order members by name, one of them an Auror. And it was very possible--considering that they had been asked to come help transport Sarah from the train station--that they lived here in London. Where, she didn't know. But if she could contact them, they would have the power to rally the necessary aid--no questions asked--more quickly than anyone else.

Sarah knelt awkwardly in front of the grate. Fire Calling was safer than trying to actually Floo to an unknown address. And all she had to go on was a name. And a tiny pinch of Floo Powder, almost the last in the tin.

Green flames flared up as she activated the Floo. Then she stuck her head inside and said, as clearly as possible, "Remus Lupin's flat."

Nothing. Not even a spinning sensation, and the flames died as she withdrew from the fireplace. For a terrible moment, Sarah had to wonder again--whether had she used enough Floo Powder, whether the Floo was working at all, whether she had lost her magic, whether...no! she stopped herself. No, it was entirely possible that Professor Lupin's hearth wasn't connected to the Floo Network. He was, after all, a werewolf. And there were fees for a Floo connection, which he could likely not afford.

Well then, what about the Auror? But what was her name...Sarah had made a point of trying to remember it...somebody Tonks? Severus had said her first name...some sort of nature spirit name. He had said it quite disdainfully... Nymph? Close, but there was more to it: it was longer than that. Nymphia? No...Sarah tried to hear Severus's voice in her head....Nymphadora! Yes! She hoped. There was only one scant pinch of Floo Powder left, scraped from the corners of the tin. But it was the only chance she had.

"Nymphadora Tonks' flat!"

This time, the Floo came to life around her, spinning her head past dozens of wizarding hearths before she finally came to a stop. She found herself looking out on a flat nearly as small and decrepit as their own. No one was in sight.

"Tonks!" Sarah called. She craned her neck uncomfortably; it felt as if she were wearing a flaming collar. When there was no answer, she said, louder, "Nymphadora Tonks?"

Nothing.

Where would a young Auror be on a Sunday afternoon?!

Anywhere, Sarah thought, despair surging through her again. Out for a stroll, or shagging Professor Lupin in his flat...well, perhaps not that; they had been quarrelling when she last saw them. There would be no help here.

If she could step through, she might be able to leave Tonks a note. Then she could try contacting the Auror Office from Tonks' hearth. And after that, she could send an owl to Professor Dumbledore, but with at least some hope that Tonks would come home soon enough to contact him long before an owl could get there. However, when Sarah tried to force the rest of her body out of the Floo, the green flames held her tight. Open to Fire Calls only, then.

Could she, Sarah wondered, carry a note in her teeth and drop it on Tonks' hearth? Well, maybe, if she could beg or borrow enough Floo Powder for another call. Although it was dubious that Tonks would find such a note, lying on the floor like that. She'd had time to examine the Auror's flat more closely in the past minute, and had come to the conclusion that it wasn't that the flat was run-down--it actually seemed to be newer and in better condition than theirs was, if no bigger. But the young woman was profoundly untidy--clothes were strewn across the sofa, newspapers and post scattered across the floor, and the remnants of previous meals ossifying on plates stacked in the sink.

Sarah was about to give up and draw back, steeling herself for the effort that would be involved in trying her dubious note plan, when the door of the flat rattled. The locks clicked, and then it opened. Sarah prepared herself to retreat, unseen, if this turned out somehow not to be Tonks' flat. But the Auror came in with an armload of bags.

"Tonks!" Sarah said.

Tonks stumbled and lost hold of one of the bags. Clothing spilled out as it hit the floor.

"You scared me half to death!" Tonks said. Then she got a closer look at the face in her fireplace. "Sarah?"

"Severus is in trouble," Sarah blurted out. "I'm sorry I startled--"

"Yes, I know," Tonks overrode her. "Professor Dumbledore had me investigating Connor's record all day yesterday, trying to figure out where he might go. If I hadn't needed clean clothes for work tomorrow--"

"But I know where he is," Sarah interrupted breathlessly. "At least I think so."

"What?" Tonks dropped the other bags on the sofa and rushed to the fireplace.

"That was why Connor didn't hurt me. Fiona had sworn an Unbreakable Vow and--"

"Wait. Start over. Where is Snape?"

"At Notting Chase!" Sarah felt tears welling up in her eyes; she could not tell all she needed to fast enough, and they might be torturing Severus to death even now. "Frankin Nott's manor, in Northumberland."

"Right," Tonks said firmly. She turned, her brows furrowing, and said, "Expecto Patronum!"

Much to Sarah's surprise, the ghostly form that took shape from the end of the woman's wand was not a bird at all. It seemed to be a dog of some kind. It sprang away, melting through the wall of the flat. How long, Sarah wondered, would it take to reach Professor Dumbledore?

"Now, how'd you find this out?" Tonks asked. "Ransom note?"

"No, that's what I was trying to tell you before." Sarah's knees and back were hurting fiercely, and the prospect of a long conversation like this was distressing. If her belly tightened now.... "Connor didn't hurt me, although he could have. It would have been like him to have. But if my aunt hired him, then she couldn't let him do that; she'd promised not to hurt my baby."

"She made an Unbreakable Vow?" The young woman's brow furrowed again, and she frowned.

"The Dark Lord made her do it. He's going to take my baby away." The words tumbled out without Sarah's intention, and she found that tears--which she had no means of wiping away--were leaking down her cheeks. "He's going to give him to my cousins, even though my aunt despises Severus."

"And I thought I had it bad," Tonks said, with a grimace. "Look, I've set things in motion, but if we've got to attack the home of a Death Eater, we're going to need to know a lot more. Potential defenses, traps. At minimum, some idea of the floor plan--"

"There isn't time!" Sarah protested. "I think Bellatrix Lestrange may be involved. She warned us that she'd get even."

Tonks' face blanched. "I know all about Bellatrix. But what I was about to suggest is for you to tell me all you know about this place. You've been there, I 'spose?"

"Yes, but I can't kneel here much longer like this." Sarah felt the beginnings of tightness in her womb, although she did her best to ignore it. "And I couldn't draw any pictures or maps."

"No, I didn't mean that. Can you Apparate over here?" Tonks began pacing back and forth in a small area of the floor that she had kicked clear.

"No. That's why you had to bring me from King's Cross. Don't you remember?" Sarah asked, exasperated.

"Oh...uh, yeah. Well, that's a problem."

"Just lift the main block on the Floo?" Sarah suggested impatiently, almost bearably uncomfortable, from her knees to her neck.

"Can't," Tonks said. "Security precautions for all Aurors. No fully open Floo connections at any time. Magical Law Enforcement put it there, not me. And I live in a Muggle part of London, so there's no other connected Floos nearby."

"Can you come here?" Sarah asked.

"Not without having a peek through your Floo. Apparating someplace you've never seen is ruddy dangerous."

"Well, then!" Sarah pulled her head back, until all of her was kneeling dizzily and painfully on her own hearth. The green flames died. It took longer than Sarah expected for them to flare again. Tonks' heart-shaped face emerged.

"Got a message back from the headmaster, and an assembly point for the rescue party. All we need now is your information."

"Good." Sarah felt relief flooding through her, so sweet it was nearly painful. "I'll tell you everything I know."

"Right," Tonks said, craning her neck this way and that. "Now, what about anti-Apparition wards?"

"Oh, shit!" Sarah burst out, hope turning to ashes in her mouth. "You can't Apparate into the flat--Severus set that ward, and I don't know how to lift it."

"Here," Tonks said, sounding just as frustrated. "You meet me in the Leaky Cauldron in five minutes." Her head vanished before Sarah could say another word.

Sarah picked up the tin of Floo Powder in despair. She tilted it, knocked on one side. A few grains of silvery powder collected together, but not enough. She tipped the grains out onto her palm and blew them into the fireplace. A few green sparks flared and died.

Now what?

She could hardly run door to door, in this house, asking her neighbors for Floo Powder. Like as not, few of them would even have any. She dragged herself up and hustled to the window. Devin was leaning against the building opposite with his eyes closed.

"Devin!" Sarah shouted.

The man straightened with a start.

"What you need?" he called back, sounding both dazed and worried.

"I need Floo Powder!"

Devin looked up at her dubiously. "You okay?"

"Yes, but I need Floo Powder right away!" The panic in her voice wasn't helping; Devin was as likely to think she'd lost her mind.

"I'll bring Mum," he said, his expression and tone of voice confirming her assessment. He turned and broke into a sprint toward his mother's. Chances were he would bring a worried Miriam back without any Floo Powder at all. Sarah fretted. Maybe she should just go over to the Snapes' herself--Caius be damned--and use the Floo there. Although that was assuming they had a working Floo connection, which, in point of fact, she did not know. And how long would it take to find out? Devin was already out of easy earshot, or she could ask him.

How long would Tonks wait? How long could the rescue effort afford to be delayed? Sarah might be able to waddle all the way out to the front of Diagon Alley in something not long over five minutes, if she were forced to resort to going on foot. If she could get through the length of Knockturn Alley unaccosted. But maybe it would better to try that than to depend on time-consuming possibilities and the risk that Miriam would assume, at least for a few minutes, that Sarah had simply snapped under the pressure and was babbling nonsense.

Sarah still had the presence of mind to grab her veil; she was all too likely to be recognized, and she could not afford to stop for a conversation. And even the Illusion Belt was hard-put to disguise the awkwardness of her gait, now. She wrapped the veil around her head and shoulders like a shawl, as she slipped out of the flat and down the stairs.