Erin sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. Casting a quick look at the peacefully sleeping boy before her, she eased out of her conjured chair and stretched the kinks out of her back. She crossed to the window and looked out over the darkened back garden of the house and property that she had been told was called ‘the Burrow’.

She could not see much of anything because it was a cloudy night, but if she had been able to take in the view beyond the window, she knew that all she would see would be an overgrown garden and derelict out-buildings. When she and Professor Dumbledore had arrived earlier that day, all she had seen was a ruin of a house set in a virtual wilderness garden. Like Hogwarts, a charm had been utilised to disguise the house and property from curious Muggle eyes. Bill had also explained to her that if any Muggle appeared at the Charms’ boundaries, they suddenly had an overwhelming desire to be somewhere else, and hence, left in a hurry, any desire to explore the overgrown property forgotten.

Erin glanced at her watch and began to pace up and down in the limited space beside the bed. Severus had been gone for eight hours now. And she was frightened. When he had felt that horrible brand on his arm burn, and Harry had woken in agony at the same time, Erin had felt a terrible foreboding. Severus had been unable to help Harry through his pain, other than to apply a salve to the inflamed and distended scar that had reappeared on Aidan’s forehead. He had not given him a systemic pain killer as they always caused varying degrees of drowsiness, and Harry did not need his conscious state compromised anymore. Harry had flailed around restlessly, whimpering with pain and trying to claw at his scar, but Severus, who had wasted no time in sending the two young Weasleys from the room, struggled against the twelve year old Aidan’s strength, holding his hands until the salve had taken the edge off the pain…the pain that was echoed in his own arm. Severus’s face had been pale and the muscles in his arm were contracting under the hideous assault upon his own senses; physically restraining a twelve year old had been much more difficult than it should have been.

Dumbledore had come and taken over the task, enabling Severus to leave on his unenviable mission without any further delay. With one hand gripped tightly over his forearm, Severus had stared at a frightened Erin, his teeth gritted against the pain. He had not taken her in his arms, nor allowed her to embrace him. With a taut smile that was little more than a grimace, he had whispered, “I will see you soon,” before disappearing out the door and hurrying down the stairs. Bill Weasley kept pace with him as he ran across the yard to disable the wards. While Severus waited, he transfigured his Muggle clothing into his Death Eater regalia and as soon as Bill had lowered the last invisible obstacle, Severus had stepped through.

“Stay safe,” Bill said. Severus skewered him with pain-glazed black eyes before acknowledging the well-wish with an abrupt nod. Then turning on the spot, he Disapparated.

Erin had stared at the spot in the room where Severus had been standing for a long time; Dumbledore’s soft, reassuring voice had dragged her back to the here and now. “Severus has been doing this for a long time, Erin. He will be back.”

Erin had no choice but to believe the old wizard, but how could they be sure Severus would be back? As far as Erin was concerned, any leader of men who had been depraved enough to devise such a painful method of summoning his servants, was perfectly capable of committing other atrocities against his own men. She knew what Voldemort was capable of. She no longer lived inside the bubble that blocked all knowledge of the magical world with all its wonders and all its horrors. She did not doubt that Severus would be punished for his delay in hurrying to his master’s side, and it terrified her to even think about it.

Erin knew that Severus must have made a terrible mistake when he was little more than a boy, but she still could not comprehend how any man, no matter how young, could allow another human being to enslave him. Severus and his fellow Death Eaters were no more than slaves who were obligated to answer Voldemort’s call whenever he felt inclined to summon them, and to do whatever he ordered under threat of appalling punishment, or even death.

Erin was frightened for the man she had come to know, the man she had, despite his efforts to push her away, come to love. She had seen how that Selwyn man had trembled in practically every muscle due to a punishment that his boss had doled out, and she could not bear to think of Severus being similarly afflicted again, even though she did not know what that particular punishment involved. She had heard Selwyn say that Severus had also been punished on that night that now seemed so long ago.

Dumbledore seemed to garner her thoughts and he tried to reassure her that if Severus was punished at all for his late arrival, it would not be too severe as he was too valuable to Voldemort. But of course, Erin couldn’t stand the thought of him being punished at all. Who in the hell was this wizard? Why did his servants suffer so at his hands if they were supposed to be on the same side? And what had made this man so unimaginably evil?

Harry moaning in his sleep pulled Erin from her anxious thoughts and her head snapped towards him. She breathed a sigh of relief when he just turned onto his side, drawing his knees up towards his chest. She continued to stare at the young man who had not settled into this peaceful sleep until after Severus had been gone for two hours. Though Erin had not allowed Harry to sleep uninterrupted; Severus had instructed her to wake him every half hour…a precaution to make sure that he could be woken.

She had been told to make sure that he was aware enough to answer some basic questions: What is your name? How old are you? Where do you go to school? Who am I? When Voldemort’s attack had stopped, Harry’s conscious state had been just as sluggish as she had witnessed it being when they had first come to the Burrow. But over the last four hours, it had been easier to rouse him and his answers had been more coherent. He was irritable at being woken, but Severus had told her that she could expect this.

Sighing, Erin threw herself back down in the chair that Dumbledore had conjured for her just before he had left Harry in her sole care. She had not wanted to lie on the other bed—she had not wanted to doze—but Dumbledore had insisted that she would be too uncomfortable if she just perched on the edge of the bed for hours on end. That had been Erin’s first intimation that Severus could be gone for an extended period of time.

Erin reached forward and brushed Aidan’s soft brown hair away from his forehead. She was pleased to see that he registered her light touch; he raised his hand to brush hers away. But not before Erin saw that the jagged scar that had appeared on Aidan’s normally blemish free forehead had disappeared again.

Erin rubbed her finger over the place where the scar had been visible. She had concluded a while back that Voldemort must have given Harry that scar during an unsuccessful attempt to murder him, and that somehow, some kind of magical connection had been forged between the young boy and the evil monster through the scar. No one had told her yet why Voldemort was determined to kill Harry. Harry was at the root of everything and Erin had yet to find out why.

The soft snick of the lock opening had Erin's eyes focusing on the door as it was slowly pushed open. Ginny Weasley poked her face around the edge, her eyes unerringly finding Harry’s recumbent form before they found Erin. Erin smiled a welcome, a silent invitation for Ginny to enter. She came and stood beside Erin, gazing down at the peacefully sleeping boy.

“He’s a lot better,” said Erin, her voice pitched so as not to disturb Harry. Ginny smiled her acknowledgement of Erin’s words but she didn’t speak; she just kept her gaze on the figure in the bed. Erin patted the other bed, inviting the young girl to sit down.

“I take it that you and your brother are good friends of Harry’s,” said Erin, hoping that she might be able to get Ginny talking. She might be able to learn some of the things that Severus and Professor Dumbledore had carefully omitted telling her.

Ginny perched on the very edge of the bed, looking as if she might bolt at any moment. She kept her eyes focused on Harry as she spoke. “Ron is Harry’s best friend, along with Hermione…Hermione Granger. They’ve known each other since their first year at Hogwarts. I’m a year behind them at school, so we don’t really hang around together.”

From the young girl’s fixated gaze and from the slightly wistful tone in her voice, Erin was sure that Ginny Weasley would very much like to hang around with Harry Potter. She had a giant-sized crush on her brother’s best friend and even looking at a total stranger where she should have been seeing Harry did nothing to lessen her anguish on Harry’s behalf.

“Well, I’m sure that Harry considers you a good friend,” assured Erin, though she knew nothing of the sort. “It’s obvious from the fact that this was our destination all along that your family must be close to Harry.”

Ginny shrugged. “We’re friends,” she admitted in a defeated little voice.

Erin thought fast, trying to think of a way to bring up the subject of Harry’s history. She wasn’t even sure that Ginny would know enough of it to appease her curiosity. “So…”she said carefully, “you’ve known Harry for how long?”

Ginny glanced at Erin quickly. “I first saw him at King’s Cross when I went with Mum to the station to see the boys onto the Hogwarts’ Express. Mum showed Harry how to get onto platform nine and three-quarters.”

Erin must have looked totally bewildered, because Ginny explained about the platform that appeared magically when witches and wizards walked through a seemingly solid barrier that divided platforms nine and ten, and about the gleaming scarlet steam-engine that transported students to and from Hogwarts.

“So, it’s like this platform is in another dimension?” said Erin trying very hard to envision the scene and marvelling that she would ever say something like ‘in another dimension', and not be talking about some science-fiction film.

Now Ginny looked confused. “N-oo. It’s really there. Muggles just can’t see it. It’s like the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron—that’s a pub in London that you have to go through to get into Diagon Alley…” Ginny trailed off biting her lip, worried that she was making the explanation more complicated. But Erin was smiling.

“I’ve been to the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley!” she said. “I couldn’t see it from Charring Cross Road, but like this house and the castle, once I was inside, I could see it all clearly.”

“There’s a spell that makes the Leaky Cauldron invisible to Muggle eyes, but platform nine and three-quarters is hidden behind the barrier. The Burrow and Hogwarts have a Charm on them that makes them appear to be ruins and it makes the Muggles need to go and attend to urgent business elsewhere when they get to the edge of the Charms protection.”

Erin was shaking her head. “It still amazes me what you magical folk can do,” said Erin, perfectly truthfully, and Ginny smiled. “But you were saying about Harry?”

Strangely, Ginny blushed. “Well, that was the first time that I saw Harry. When I found out it was Harry Potter after the twins had helped him get his trunk onto the train, I acted like an idiot, whingeing about wanting to get onto the train to see him again.” Her blush had intensified and she was looking at her agitated fingers and she clasped and unclasped them. “I was only ten,” she mumbled.

“What was so special about Harry that you wanted to see him again?” asked Erin carefully. Ginny raised astonished brown eyes to her face.

“Well, because he was Harry Potter.”

“So…”

“He was famous! He is famous. Everyone in the wizarding world knows about Harry Potter and how he survived the killing curse and defeated He Who Must Not Be Named.”

Erin’s mouth dropped open in shock. “The Killing Curse?” she croaked.

“No-one else has ever survived the Killing Curse,” explained Ginny and her eyes rested on Aidan again. “And most people thought that He Who Must Not Be Named was dead; they thought that a little baby had killed him.” Ginny’s voice dropped to an incredulous whisper. “But he wasn’t dead. He just no longer had a body, and his spirit or whatever it was had to flee. But now he’s back.” Erin had to strain her incredulous ears to even hear the last sentence at all.

This had to be a fairytale! Even in the magical world, such things couldn’t happen, surely. Spirits fleeing! A person who was reduced to a spirit somehow, had now reappeared as a living person again! How was that possible? And so she asked, “How?” in the same tiny voice that Ginny had used.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” responded Ginny. “But I do know that Harry was transported away when he touched the cup during the last task of the Tri-Wizard tournament, and that he was tortured by He Who Must Not Be Named and his blood was used in a potion that gave him back his body. And the Killing Curse was used against Harry again.” Erin stared, appalled, at the young girl, noting the progress of tears down her pretty young face.

“He’s been through so much,” Ginny added, her little voice infinitely sad and Erin realised that Ginny Weasley’s feelings for Harry extended way beyond a crush. She didn’t have a tissue to offer the young girl but it didn’t matter; Ginny dashed the tears away with her fingers.

“Sorry,” she said, glancing embarrassedly at Erin. “But he’s just lost Sirius…Sirius Black, his Godfather, after all of that horror last year, starting with the dementor attack, and he was treated like dirt by most of the school for the whole year because so few people believed him and Dumbledore that He Who Must Not Be Named was back, and Umbridge was practically torturing him and she was going to use the Cruciatus Curse on him…”

Ginny trailed off when Erin reached across and squeezed her pyjama clad knee. “Umm, Ginny…most of this is going over my head. I'm lost.”

“Sorry,” said Ginny again, rubbing her tight cheeks where she had smeared the salty tears a few seconds ago.

Erin tried to gather her thoughts, tried to arrange the information that Ginny had given her. There was so much that she needed to know…so much more than she could ever have imagined she needed to know. “How old was Harry when Voldemort tried to kill Harry the first time?” she asked first off.

“Just over a year old,” said Ginny, and Erin’s mouth dropped open. Ginny looked at her. “He should have been killed, but all that happened was that he ended up with the scar on his forehead.”

“Where were his parents?” asked Erin, more appalled than she had been throughout the whole recital.

Ginny stared at her. “They were killed trying to protect Harry.”

Erin shut her eyes as the nightmare that was Harry’s life washed over her. It was so much worse than she could possibly have imagined. And the fact that Petunia Dursley had so patently hated her nephew and allowed her husband to dole out his vicious abuse when her own sister had been murdered, defied comprehension. Erin opened her eyes and she and Ginny both stared at the sleeping boy, both envisioning the black hair and thin face rather than what they were actually seeing.

And just where, in view of this whole tragic history, did Severus’s dislike and disdain for Harry spring from?

She was pulled from these musings when Ginny spoke again, her voice stronger than it had been. “I don’t want you to think that I only like Harry because he’s famous. I was a little girl when I first saw him and I'd heard his story so many times, I was excited to see him. Then I actually met Harry and I grew to like him because he’s a really lovely person, and not because he’s The Boy Who Lived.”

Erin smiled and squeezed Ginny’s knee reassuringly. “I’m sure Harry likes you too Ginny, because from what I’ve seen, you’re a really lovely person too.”

8888

Erin didn’t have the nerve to wring anymore information out of Ginny; she didn’t think she could stand to hear more in case there was even worse to relate. But even if she had wanted to pick her brains further, the opportunity was lost when the door opened again to admit Molly. A tray preceded her into the room, but both the tray and Molly, her wand aloft, stopped short at the sight of Ginny.

“Ginny, what are you doing up at this hour?” Erin was relieved to hear that the formidable Molly Weasley did not sound angry, quite the contrary in fact. She took the few steps necessary to reach her daughter’s side—the tray staying ahead of her. Molly guided the tray past Erin so that it came to rest on the chest of drawers behind her, before she thrust her wand into her dressing gown pocket and sat down next to her daughter. Erin would have moved out of her chair to give Molly more room—it was rather a squeeze between the beds where her chair was squashed—but Molly’s somewhat plump figure prevented such a move.

Molly pulled her daughter, who had tears streaming down her face again, into her arms, rubbing the slender back and crooning comforting words in her ear. “Harry will be all right, Ginny. He’s too strong to allow this latest setback to bring him down.”

Ginny nodded into her mother’s neck. After a few seconds, she gathered her frayed emotions together and stepped back. Molly fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to her daughter. “Now off to bed, young lady. It’s one thirty in the morning. Harry is being well looked after.”

Erin managed to smile and wish Ginny goodnight, though she was reeling from the surprise of Molly’s final words. Had their actually been approbation in the woman’s tone? Certainly the words had sounded approving. After the door had shut, Molly stared at it for several seconds before she turned back, her wand in hand again to levitate the tray to stop in front of Erin.

She removed one of the two large tea cups and held it whilst she lowered the tray onto Erin’s lap. “I thought you might need a drink and…” she indicated a covered plate, “…something to eat. You missed dinner.” When Molly removed the cover, the delicious aroma of meat, vegetables, herbs, spices and butter-rich pastry assailed Erin’s nostrils and her mouth immediately began to water.

Erin looked up at Molly and smiled. “Thank you, Molly. This is very kind of you.” Molly lowered herself onto the end of the bed again and waved away the thanks.

“Tosh,” she said. “You’re dedication to Harry’s needs is all the thanks I need.” She raised her cup to her lips and took a deep swallow of the burgundy liquid within while she watched with satisfaction as Erin picked up a fork and sliced through the delicious looking pastry and succulent filling. She had never tasted anything as delicious in the whole of her life and she shut her eyes in ecstasy. Molly allowed Erin to finish off the large portion of pie and begin to sip her tea before she spoke again.

“I want to apologise for my behaviour earlier today, Erin. I did not comport myself in the manner I have always tried to teach my children they should adopt towards guests.” She stood and relieved Erin of the tray, which she put on the floor near the door. Instead of sitting down again, she remained standing and gazed down at the young boy who was visually a stranger, but whom her heart told her was Harry.

She had seen Harry curled up like this often enough when she stuck her head in late at night to check all was well. Arthur had told her that one day she might see one of her sons doing something she wouldn’t want to see if she kept on checking that all was well with young men well endowed with raging hormones, but Molly had been unable to break the habit. Her concession to preserving her sons’ modesty was listening at the door until she was certain no sounds issued from within.

“My only excuse is that I have been so worried about Harry ever since we learned about what happened from Albus, and then we were unable to see him because he was whisked away with Severus and yourself.” Molly looked at Erin, who had now risen from her chair to stand next to the older woman. “That was a worry in itself because Severus and Harry do not have a very happy history together.”

Erin tried to project the attitude that Molly’s worries had been for nought, but she was not sure that she had succeeded. She was relieved when Molly didn’t pursue the subject of Severus’ and Harry’s rocky relationship. It seemed the older woman was genuine in her desire not to resume hostilities, which was all to the good because Erin was not in the mood to listen to anyone who might be inclined to insult Severus. She turned towards the window again and looked out across the dark garden. She was desperate to see Severus standing at the property boundary awaiting admission to the Burrow, but even if he was there, she would not have been able to see him. The night was pitch-black.

“When Severus comes back, how will he be able to get past the protection?” she asked, still staring out at the night.

“He will report to Albus first, at Hogwarts. Then he will be able to Floo here directly from Albus’s office. That is the only direct Floo connection to here now, and Albus is the only one who can open the connection from that end.”

Erin could only nod. She had a mad desire to laugh at the fact that she had actually understood Molly’s explanation. It now seemed almost normal, that she knew about things such as Floo connections and magical protection and Hogwarts. That she could see trays floating through the air without blinking her eyes to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

Fatigue and worry for both Harry and Severus were finally catching up with her and the horrible events of the day washed over her in a wave of misery that had her bursting into tears and dropping her face into her hands. In a flash, it seemed, Molly had her in her arms much as she had done with Ginny earlier. And Erin let herself go.

And when Molly said quietly, “You care for Severus, don’t you?” Erin sobbed all the harder. Molly soothed her as Erin’s own mother would have done if she had been here. Erin tried, but she couldn’t stop crying, not until a croaky voice had Molly and her springing apart. Harry was leaning against the headboard, staring at the two of them through eyes that no longer had a bleary, unfocused look. His forehead was creased with worry though.

“What’s wrong?” asked Harry for the second time. His voice was anxious and his gaze moved between Erin and Mrs Weasley, and when Erin threw her arms around him and burst into more tears, those blue eyes looked positively terrified as they found a misty-eyed Mrs Weasley over Erin’s heaving shoulder.

“Mrs Weasley, what’s wrong?” he asked for the third time, his voice a little more high-pitched as his anxiety surged. “Where’s Professor Snape?”

“You’ve been sick, Harry, dear. You hit your head and you’ve got a concussion.” Molly gently clasped Erin’s heaving shoulders and pried her off Harry. “Erin dear, you’re frightening him.”

Erin sniffed inelegantly and Molly fished for her wand while patting her on the back. She pointed the wand at the used paper serviette on the tray and transfigured it into a clean square of soft cotton which she levitated to where Erin could take it and mop up the tears. Erin kept her back turned towards Harry, who was still looking extremely worried and scared while she tried to repair the damage the tears had wrought.

Molly approached Harry and pulled him against her for a hug before holding him at arms length and studying him minutely. “How are you feeling, dear?”

“Fine,” said Harry automatically, but at Molly’s raised eyebrow, he elaborated. “Mostly fine. I’ve got a bit of a headache, but nothing that I can’t handle. How long have I been here?”

“You arrived at about four PM. It’s two-thirty AM now.”

“And I’ve been out of it all that time?” exclaimed Harry, appalled. He looked past Molly to Erin. “What happened to me? And how did we get here so fast. I thought we still had another day of travel.”

Erin took a deep breath, balling the handkerchief in her hand. “Because you were hurt, Harry, Severus and I decided that we needed to get you somewhere where you could be looked after properly. Severus summoned Professor Dumbledore and he told Severus to Apparate here with you, and Professor Dumbledore bought me after he banished the car.”

Erin had to know. “Do you remember what happened to you?” Harry gazed off into space for a moment, but then he shook his head.

“I remember the hotel and driving for hours after we left it, but then everything is a blank.”

“You don’t even remember the restaurant, or going off to the loo by yourself?”

Harry shook his head and scratched his neck. “So what happened? Did Death Eaters find us?”

“No,” said Erin, thankful that the whole episode with that terrible man was a blank sheet for Harry, but feeling a little hollow develop in her stomach at the thought of lying to him. “You apparently slipped in a puddle of water in the bathroom, hit you cheek on the sink on your way down and then smashed your head on the floor. Severus found you unconscious.”

Aidan’s eyes were wide when Erin stopped talking and he shook his head in disbelief, his hand clapped to his forehead. “Merlin, take me off a broom and I need a keeper!”

Erin bit her lip. “Do you know how many accidents happen in the bathroom, Harry, because of spilt water on the tiles?” She was desperate to make Harry feel a little better about his supposed clumsiness.

“Errr, no,” answered Harry. “How many?”

“I think the question was rhetorical, Harry,” said Molly. “Now dear, would you like something to eat?”

Harry might have forgotten the incident that had precipitated his latest foray into ill health, but no hit on the head could make him forget Mrs Weasley’s cooking. After she had bustled out of the room, Erin began to fuss around, straightening the bedclothes.

“Why were you crying?” asked Harry, eyeing her with a very knowing expression. “I know it wasn’t just because of me. Where’s Professor Snape?”

Erin bit her lip. She really didn’t want to tell Harry that Severus had been summoned. She had not known him long, but Erin knew that he would stress. She had seen enough of Harry in the wizarding world to know that he blamed himself for anything that happened that was to do with Voldemort. She didn’t have to say anything though; Harry was rubbing the spot where his scar would have been visible if he still didn’t have Aidan’s face.

“My scar is prickling, and as Snape isn’t here with you, I suppose he’s been summoned.” And without waiting for confirmation, Harry added, “How long has he been gone?”

8888

While Harry was being plied with food and fluids at the Weasley’s, Severus Flooed into Dumbledore’s office from the Shrieking Shack. He had stayed for a few minutes in the shack to try and heal some of the more serious injuries that had been inflicted upon him by a very unhappy Dark Lord. He had trouble applying the Dittany to the open, bleeding wounds, even the ones that he could reach easily, because his post-Cruciatus tremors were so bad.

His arrival in Albus’s office was much less fluid than it normally was; he actually fell to his knees when he tried to step from the flames. Albus was there in a flash to help Severus to his feet and guide him—surprisingly—to a stool instead of the chintz-covered chair. What made the ignominy worse was that he actually did not brush the assistance off; he needed the help.

“My God!” bit out Albus as he took in Severus’s bruised and battered face, the right eye of which was swollen shut. He began to putter around, opening cabinet doors and putting bottles and jars on the desk along with a large roll of cotton wool. Severus watched through his open eye, and if it wouldn’t hurt so much, he would have frowned.

“What are you doing, old man?” he asked and then he winced and hissed with pain as the cut on his bottom lip opened up again and began to bleed. He tentatively probed the wound with his tongue, grimacing at the coppery taste of blood.

“After the last time you came back this badly injured, I decided that I would be prepared for the next time. But first of all…” Albus crossed to his drink's cabinet and poured two glasses of Ogden’s, one of which he held up to Fawkes to contribute a couple of tears. He didn’t even appear to make a request of the bird.

As Severus had once before benefited from the remarkable curative powers of those tears, he made no comment, but accepted the proffered drink without hesitation and raised the glass to his swollen and split lips. He tensed for the painful sting of the strong alcohol on the open wound, but it never happened. The Phoenix tears obviously countered the alcohol. When he had slugged the shot back, he knew that his lip had turned to its normal proportions and that the cut was healed. And his tremors had stopped as if they had never been, along with them, the memory of the excruciating pain.

“Remove your robes and your shirt,” ordered Dumbledore and when Severus opened his mouth to argue that he could now take care of his own injuries, Dumbledore just pointed his wand and banished the robes. Severus’s exclamation of rage was ignored and when he would have leapt to his feet, Albus just pointed his wand at the battered chest, the look on the old face enough to warn Severus not to test his mentor’s patience any further.

With his patient’s compliance guaranteed, Albus poured some Dittany into a small bowl. He then turned to Fawkes again and held the bowl up. Severus thought Dumbledore might be pushing his luck, but Fawkes tilted his head to the side and Severus heard two distinct plops as two tears joined the small amount of liquid in the bottom of the bowl.

Severus seethed as Albus began his ministrations, but he couldn’t help a sigh of relief escaping his tightly compressed lips when the stinging and smarting of the various injuries on his face and torso eased and then disappeared entirely.

“Talk to me,” ordered Albus and as he continued with his task, Severus talked.

“Overall, he was in a very good mood, he and the rest of his minions. The Brockdale Bridge collapse was tremendous fun. And…” Here, Severus paused because he knew that he was going to cause considerable distress to his employer. He had been hard-pressed to hide his own emotions when he had found out why Harry had suffered the scar pain in the car and then later in the hotel.

“And?” said Dumbledore, and he stopped applying the Dittany and Phoenix tear concoction; he knew what a pause in Severus Snape, master spy’s narrative meant…he was about to hear something that was going to have a personal impact on him.

“And…Emmeline Vance and Amelia Bones are both dead.”

Dumbledore groaned and shut his eyes, swaying a little in his shock. Severus jumped up and took the old man’s arm and guided him into the chintz chair. Now he became the carer. He left Albus with his face hidden in his hand before cursorily cleaning and mending his shirt and shrugging it on over his almost completely healed back and chest. He eschewed buttoning it for the moment. Instead, he picked up Dumbledore’s almost untouched drink and pressed it into his boss’s shaking hand, guiding it to his mouth.

“Drink it all,” he ordered and Dumbledore did just that before slumping back into the chair, looking very old and somehow diminished.

“How?” he whispered.

Severus shook his head. “You don’t want to know.” His own cast iron stomach had heaved when he had watched Yaxley’s memories of the two horrific murders. Yaxley was being a friend, thinking that Severus, who usually missed out on the good stuff, would want to see how the two women had been disposed of. “They’re both in their homes, awaiting discovery.”

“My God,” groaned Dumbledore. “They were murdered the day before yesterday and no-one has realised that they are gone. I will have to organise some form of daily communication for the Order members so that I know that they are alive and…” His voice trailed off and he covered his eyes again, trying to hide his grief. Severus strode to Albus’s cabinet where the old man had stored the illicit stash of potions that had been pilfered from Severus's own private stock. He was looking for a potion to counteract shock. But before he could find the distinctive green phial, Fawkes launched himself from his perch and with outstretched wings, he soared across the room to land on his human’s shoulder.

Otherworldly, beautiful music flowed from the bird’s beak and permeated both Severus and Dumbledore’s beings, immediately lifting their moods out of the bleak place the murders of the two women had plunged them. Dumbledore reached up and scratched the handsome scarlet head of his Phoenix.

“Thank you Fawkes,” he said, his voice much stronger than it had been. Fawkes trilled another three liquid golden notes and then launched himself into the air again, soaring up the staircase towards, Severus presumed, Albus’s bedroom.

With a deep sigh, Albus made a move to pry himself out of his chair but Severus put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Albus looked up into the younger man’s strained features. He slumped back and closed his eyes. “What else?”

Severus squeezed the bony shoulder in affirmation.

“The reason you were treated so harshly?”

“No,” said Severus. “I was punished because I had no news of Harry; I have not made enough of an effort to locate the boy and bring him to the Dark Lord.”

Albus looked up. Severus had begun to pace about the room, doing up his shirt as he walked. When he spoke again, his voice was even more grim than it had been when he had relayed the news of Emmeline and Amelia’s murders. “So, he has hit upon what he feels is a fool-proof plan to get Harry to come to him.”

Albus felt a deep sense of foreboding. “Tell me,” he said.

“Today, a Muggle boy was kidnapped. A boy who will turn sixteen on the thirty-first of July.” Dumbledore paled because he knew that the kidnapping of a Muggle boy with the same birthday as Harry’s could not be the worst of it. And sure enough…

“Another fifteen boys with that birthday are targeted, and one will be kidnapped every day until the thirty-first. On the thirty-first, if Harry has not handed himself over, all sixteen will be killed. The Dark Lord is not entirely happy with this plan though...he feels that the impact on the wizarding world would be so much more shocking if the boys were wizards. But unfortunately for him, only one wizard was born on July thirty-one, sixteen years ago in Britain.”

Feeling sick to his stomach throughout the whole of the recitation of the Dark Lord's imperfect plan, Severus none-the-less relayed the whole in his usual emotionless voice; he found it helped to at least keep up an appearance of indifference. As Dumbledore’s face darkened with terrible fury, Severus felt a shiver of trepidation course down his spine. Here was the only one that the Dark Lord feared.

Dumbledore launched himself out of his chair and strode about the room. “And how,” he asked in a voice that shook, “is he planning on getting this message to Harry?”

“He will force the Prophet to print the challenge. That way, the whole of the wizarding world will know that if Harry does not hand himself over to the Dark Lord, sixteen innocent teenagers will die.”

Dumbledore had stopped behind his desk. He leaned on his knuckles and his eyes blazed as he glared at Severus. “It would be foolish in the extreme for me to hope that you saw the list of boy’s names and addresses?”

“He and the Death Eaters involved most closely with this scheme are not sharing with the rest of us. Nor were any of the rest of us told where the first boy is being held. Albus glared for several seconds more, then with a long-suffering sigh, he lowered his head between his hunched shoulders. “Then we must ensure that Harry does not see the Prophet, nor hear of this plan.”