Harry picked his way along the narrow track, slipping from tree to shadowy tree with the confidence of long familiarity. The tip of his wand glowed dimly, barely lighting the path, but he could have found his way in pitch darkness. He’d done it often enough. Reaching a tall Beech tree, he stopped and checked behind him, listening for any signs of pursuit - a tell-tale rustle of fallen leaves, the snap of a twig. He dreaded running into the centaurs or Aragog; he half expected to hear Grawp lumbering to greet - or crush - him. Silence. The dreary afternoon had decayed into a dank, sullen October evening, the clouds low and heavy with impending rain. The Forbidden Forest, hunched and gaunt, turned up its black collar against the coming night.

The Beech marked the boundary of the protective wards that enclosed Hogwarts. It had taken Harry several nights of forging deeper and deeper into the undergrowth, pausing, testing and pressing onwards, before he discovered the Spell thresh-hold. There he had made his first uncoordinated attempts at Apparating, combining theory gleaned from ‘Magical Mobility’ with the practical hints from Fred and George.

“Keep your eyes shut… Visualise the destination… Protect your head when you land… Bend your knees…”

His first few tries had merely knocked him off his feet. Then he was hurtled sideways several yards into the scrubby brushwood and brambles. With perseverance he found he could manage a short hop from one tree to the next. Within a fortnight he’d built the distance up to a hundred yards, then five hundred. Judging the landing location had been the biggest hurdle - he lacked precision; his visualisation technique was poor. But finally he felt he was ready to cope with the ‘big jump’. He just wished the ‘popping’ noise didn’t make his ears ring.

It was nearly time to go. Any minute now Draco would be rushing to Snape’s office to deliver his frantic message:

“Sir! Sir! Harry’s been ‘summoned’ by You-Know-Who!”

Would Snape take the bait? Would he hurry to the Forest, hoping to forestall Harry, only to feel the Dark Mark burning with its own peremptory summons?

Lowering his arms from the ‘brace for impact’ position, Harry looked around him quickly to get his bearings. His ears were ringing from a ‘crack’ rather than a ‘pop’ this time - perhaps the noise and volume altered depending on the distance travelled. At least he hadn’t Apparated right into the centre of a Death Eater gathering - that would have taken some explaining, if he had lived long enough.

He found himself on some kind of country lane - nowhere he recognised - at the end of a long, sloping driveway. A rickety, wooden five-bar gate, secured by a fraying loop of rope slung loosely over the gatepost, defended the entrance. An estate agent’s sign, a ‘Sold’ sticker pasted diagonally across it, lay crookedly on the grass verge by the gate, crushing the waist-high nettles. Harry clambered over, and wished he hadn’t - the unpainted wood was green and slimy with lichen. Wiping his smeared hands on his robes he set off cautiously up the drive. Large, thick leaved shrubs - rhododendrons, maybe, it was too dark to tell - towered on either side. Under his feet a yielding, soggy layer gave up the sour, fermenting smell of rotting leaves and damp soil. It was starting to rain: a chill drizzle spattered his face.

The barn adjoined a squat, stone building. Harry had an impression of thick walls and small, deeply recessed windows, but his attention was fixed on the activity within the barn. He inched forward towards the lights and the voice - a voice that was seared into his memory, that had polluted his dreams, poisoned his nightmares.

“We meet again, my most faithful Death Eaters,” said Voldemort in the thin, cruel, unearthly tone that Harry remembered so vividly. “I welcome you, my friends, my loyal followers. We are few in number now, so many of you have made sacrifices for our noble cause, but we survive. We return. The word is spreading fast that we have returned. Our time is approaching; it is near. Our star stands once more in the ascendant.”

Harry crept nearer until he could see through the wide doorway and into the barn itself. Blazing torches illuminated a large, derelict space; at one end the broken timbers of old stalls and mangers showed that it had once housed animals. Now just some stray wisps of hay, straw stubble trodden into the mud floor and a lingering, musky, faecal aroma were the only traces of its former use.

Nine masked and hooded shapes stood in a loose circle, their gaze uniformly focussed on the tall, skeletal, cloaked figure at their head. At the sight of him, Harry felt adrenalin kick into every cell of his body; his heart raced with a strange exhilaration, part fear, part fey anticipation of the coming exchange. The evil, red eyes caressed the group as Voldemort paced the circle, hissing in greeting or admonishment to the assembled Death Eaters.

Harry searched the circle for Snape. His stiff, upright bearing and commanding presence normally singled him out instantly in any gathering, but here the anonymous figures were indistinguishably stooped and obsequious. It seemed to Harry as he watched, however, that one of the Death Eaters was sneaking covert glances beyond the immediate circle, scanning the dim corners of the barn, his eyes sliding into the darkness outside the doorway, before slipping back to rest upon the Dark Lord. It had to be Snape. Harry shrank back into the shadows. He watched in voyeuristic fascination at the sight of the stern Potions master so round-shouldered and subservient.

‘The bastard can act,’ thought Harry. ‘I suppose that’s pretty important, if you’re a spy.’

“Explain your presence, Potter-child, ssnake-sspeaker!” The hiss came from low down, in the grass. Nagini was coiled at Harry’s feet, his scaly arrow-head raised, poised to strike. Instinctively Harry dropped into Parseltongue:

“I have a message for Lord V-…” he stopped himself just in time, “…for your Master. I mean him no harm. Take me to him, Nagini.”

Moments later Harry stood in the centre of the circle, face to face with Voldemort.

The wide, white face twisted into a rictus of triumph, the blood-red lizard eyes gleaming with complacency.

“This is a night of surprises. My friends, I am honoured. I have a visitor. The indomitable Harry Potter,” he sneered. “To what do I owe this pleasure? Can I safely assume that your pitiful minions are hovering out there in the bushes? That at some secret signal the mighty wrath of Dumbledore will be unleashed? Pray silence while I salute my nemesis!”

“I am alone.” said Harry.

“Alone? A bold, some might say foolhardy, move.” Voldemort’s vertical pupils narrowed in suspicion. “Do not treat me like a fool, Harry Potter. Do not attempt to deceive Lord Voldemort. If you are lying, I will enjoy extracting the truth from you.” His laugh was mocking, mirthless.

“I’m not lying,” said Harry, fighting to keep his voice neutral. This was not the time to show emotion. “I am not here as your enemy, my Lord.”

The title caught Voldemort’s interest. Two words he had never expected to hear from the lips of The Boy Who Lived. Stretching out a pallid, fleshless finger he tipped Harry’s head up to look him straight in the face. Excruciating pain sliced through Harry’s scar as Voldemort penetrated his mind. When he stepped back he was smiling, a smug, conceited, self-satisfied smile.

“So. I see sincerity, Harry Potter, and disillusion, suffering and anger. You are not my enemy, and yet, you are not wholly my friend. Your old friends have failed you; you now turn to me. You hope we may come to an understanding, a meeting of great minds… And you have, I perceive, brought me a present...”

Harry wondered how much detail Voldemort had gleaned from that momentary incursion. He had been concentrating on maintaining his ‘mirror wall’, to let surface thoughts only be accessible to the Dark Lord’s mental predation. He knew that in any sustained attack Voldemort would overrun his defences, but in this light skirmish his Occlumency barriers were still holding. And Voldemort’s doubts were assuaged. He was positively gleeful, his vanity stroked.

Harry felt elated, buoyed with the confidence of the self-righteous. His was the power to dispense justice, to right a wrong that had been too long concealed. His was the power to choose… Snape’s fate lay in the balance, in his hands…

This was Harry’s moment of victory and vindication. A proud moment, the culmination of his weeks of planning - the moment when he and James would finally be avenged.

He addressed Voldemort, speaking loudly and clearly, so that the whole circle of Death Eaters could hear.

“I have come here tonight to expose a traitor, my Lord. A man who has spied on you and betrayed your trust for fifteen years. A liar, a deceiver, a cheat who has pretended to be your loyal supporter, while he was secretly working for your enemy, Dumbledore.” Harry paused, moistening dry lips. Voldemort pushed his livid face close - Harry gagged at the rancid stench of serpent breath.

“His name, boy?” he spat.

“His name is Severus Snape.”

Harry sensed a scuffle behind him and Snape, clamped in a double arm-lock and propelled by a burly Death Eater on either side, was brought before Voldemort.

“You have disappointed me, Severus.” The red slits glittered maniacally in the sockets of that hideous snake-skull; the voice smooth, venomous, edged with fury, sharpening to shrillness.

“On your knees, you treasonous scum! You shall feel how Lord Voldemort rewards a traitor!”

He raised a wasted hand, one long, bony finger pointing at Snape, then he lowered his arm. Vindictive delight cracked his ghoulish face.

“Let us give our young informer the pleasure…” he smiled grotesquely. “Go ahead, Harry Potter.”

Conscious that at least six Death Eater wands were aimed directly at him, Harry took out his own wand. His body thrilled with a savage desire to inflict pain on the kneeling man.

“CRUCIO!”

Snape did not scream, but dropped to the ground, his body contorted in appalling agony. Harry’s thoughts flash-backed to that lonely graveyard by the headstone of Voldemort’s father, Tom Riddle - he remembered only too well the agonising pain of the Cruciatus Curse, a pain ‘like white-hot knives’ that had made him feel as though ‘his very bones were on fire’.

Impassive, Harry watched Snape silently shuddering on the floor of the barn. It felt good.

Voldemort turned to one of the Death Eaters.

“Clarkson, escort our young friend and see that he enjoys the benefits of our hospitality. I have a little further business to ‘discuss’ with Severus…”

The hooded man seized Harry roughly by the arm and growled,

“C’mon, Scar-boy!”

Voldemort reprimanded him,

“The boy is our guest, Clarkson. And, by the way, ‘Expelliarmus!’”

Harry felt his wand slide out of his pocket.