The storm had calmed significantly, and the twisted clouds were now drifting off to the distance, the occasional flash of lightning streaked through the sky, followed by a distant roll of thunder. Harry was lying on the ground by the bars of the jail, upon the driest patch of dirty stone he could find. He was almost asleep, his tired brain still buzzing slightly from Snape's confession. He really wasn't sure what to think. A part of him was so angry and wanted to blame Snape for everything. But another part of him, the one that remembered asking Aunt Petunia why funny people pointed at him before he knew not to bring it up, sort of understood what Snape felt like; It really wasn't too different, and if you didn't really understand a piece of information and you shared I anyway, then Harry wasn't quite sure how it could be all your fault. And while Snape had not been right by following Voldemort,  he had changed in the end, hadn't he?

      Harry's brain hurt from all the thinking, and so he let his mind go blissfully blank. He was unable to keep it this way for long though, for every time he was about to relax he thought about ropes and torches and angry judges. Yet, somehow, in the whirling hurricane of his emotions he was able to fall into a restless sleep.

      He awoke again in the night, for the temperature had dropped as the clouds cleared.  Harry's side was damp from lying on the floor, and he curled up further into a ball. It was strange, for he was in a state of semi consciousness - not quite awake, but not asleep either. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact he had been unable to sleep for a very long time. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were just too heavy, and so he let himself stay, surrounded in cool darkness. It was obviously still very late, but he did not hear the soft snores that he had come to associate with Snape being asleep, however seldom sleep for him seemed to occur.

      Harry let out a small breath, which had a slight rasping quality due to his chattering teeth. He muttered a little bit, slipping into half in dreams, but not quite realising that that was the case. He was at Privet drive, and Aunt Petunia was yelling at him for being slow at getting up, or at least he was pretty sure she was.

     "C-comin' Aun' P'tunia," he said unintelligibly as his chattering teeth and tired lips got in the way of his speech.

      "Quiet," a voice said tiredly, but not unkindly. "Go back to sleep."

      "Snape?" Harry muttered deliriously, teeth crashing together and sounding as loud as cymbals within Harry's ears.

      "Yes. Go to sleep," he said quietly.

      "Yessir," mumbled Harry back. "Promise Aunt Petunia'll go?"

     "I won't let her bother you," Snape muttered back.

     "That's good."

     "Now sleep," was the reply, the sounds of Snape's robes making a soft noise nearby. He thought he felt a hand on his back for a second, but wasn't sure. Quite suddenly Harry wasn't so cold, and his teeth stopped chattering and his nose grew warmer. And so sleep claimed him once more.

      ***

     Harry awoke again, and this time it was morning. The first he noticed was the sound of voices outside the jail. Warm and sleepy, he sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. It was clear that Snape was beginning to stir as well, his hair in his face and back up against the bars of the jail. It took a moment or two, but Snape looked up - eyes not quite focused - and stretched. There was a loud crack and Snape winced, rubbing his neck.

        Little slivers of his previous awakening during the night filtered through the fuzz in Harry's head, and it suddenly made sense why he had grown warm and fallen asleep on such a cold night. For looking at Snape, Harry realised he was missing something. It just registered in Harry's brain that he was wrapped in a thick cloak, Snape's cloak in fact. He wasn't entirely sure what to think about that. In some ways he was a little repulsed to be covered in the cloak of the dungeon bat, but he was also glad he wasn't cold, so these things balanced each other out.

      Snape saw Harry watching while he ran his fingers ran over the fabric of the cloak.

     "Dumbledore would have had my neck if you froze during the night," Snape said gruffly as Harry handed the cloak over.

       After a moment Snape seemed to realise how strange his statement was, considering the situation and what was to take place. He turned away from Harry to glance through the bars and across the jail. And that was their last moment of peace together, before they were thrown into the lion's den.

      "It's time," said the harsh voice of McTavish, followed by the loud jangle of the keys.

     In mere seconds the door was thrown open with a loud clang, and Harry found his hands being tied. Snape was dragged out of the cell while Bruce finished tying Harry's hands. He was going quietly, which was strange to Harry. Snape did not go quietly ... but here he was, eyes dead and walking as though he had been trained to. That dark shroud had fallen around Snape once more, the one that had been almost permanent since he took that horrible potion. It clouded his features, made what little light left in his eyes die. A stone settled at the bottom of Harry's stomach as he caught a glimpse of Snape's weary face, glancing back, looking at nothing in particular. His face read easily to Harry, and quite clearly it said, "There's no way out."

      Dragged roughly through the jailhouse doors ... out into the blazing red sunrise that made the tree and newly built platform under it a silhouette to Harry's watering eyes ... through the crowds of people ... Snape's dead eyes ... the shouts ... Harry's pulse so strong, and yet so faint ... up the new wood steps to the platform. And so the final journey was complete. 

     Harry stood - shaking legs and cold hands - upon the clean smelling wood platform as the red sunlight bathed the people below, the people screaming at them. Beside him Snape looked cold, pale, resigned. A raven soared over to the tree, shuffled its feet and stared at them with its beady eyes from where it sat perched upon a low hanging branch nearby.

     A pinched faced man with protuberant eyes mounted the platform and made sure Snape and Harry were facing the nooses before them. Harry felt sick. With a sour look the man pulled the loop in the rope over Snape's head and settled it around his neck. Snape did not flinch. Bruce looked over at Harry from his position on the narrow stairs to the platform. Then the noose was pulled over Harry's head, the thick rope scratching against his pallid skin. Harry flinched, and started to shake.

       He didn't want this ... there were so many things he would never get to do.  He closed his eyes, pictures of his friends rushing by. He wouldn't get to wish Ron a happy twelfth birthday. He wouldn't get to see Hedwig again, or any his friends. He wouldn't have the time to think over what Snape had told him the night before. He wouldn't get to grow up, or have his first Christmas away from the Dursleys and eat turkey until he was so full all he could do was sleep. He certainly wouldn't get to find out what it was like to graduate, and do it with friends too. There wasn't time for that.

      Harry opened his eyes and looked down at his feet, standing so carefully on the trapdoor that would disappear from beneath his feet in mere moments. He looked at Snape, wishing he had an answer for him about what he had said. What could Harry say? He had barely gotten over the shock of it all. But he was still quite sure that Snape did not deserve this death; he did not deserve to die like a criminal. Though he had acted like one at times, maybe he wasn't one through and through, and Harry had only had a little time to see Snape's good side. Little glimpses, here and there. Now he never would. There wasn't time for that.

      Someone down below was reading something up to them, but he couldn't understand a word of it for the terror that had grabbed a hold of him. The man below fell silent, and so did the crowd. Harry saw McTavish standing near a lever. This was it - he was sure of it, and his eyes prickled as the fear spiralled upward in a gripping crescendo. But he would not cry. No matter how much he wanted to. He would not give them the satisfaction.

      He looked over at Snape, and was surprised to see him returning the gaze.

      "I'm sorry ... Harry," he whispered so that not even the pinched faced man could hear.

      With that he turned his head to the red horizon, suddenly straightening up and standing with a courage Harry had never seen before. A fire, blazing in his eyes showed everyone below he was ready. Ready to face death. And then Harry heard a click, and before his vision snaked a streak of black.

    But it was not because the wood had disappeared beneath his feet, but because something had flown onto the platform. It was the raven in fact, its claws outstretched. It landed on the platform, and in an instant before Harry erupted a hooded figure. Flames shot out of the figure's wand and rose to encircle the tree and platform. It was a storm of fury, blocking the crowd or anyone else for that matter from getting to them. McTavish bolted, clothes on fire after the flames shot across the ground near the lever. The fire popped and hissed, and  soon moved to close the barrier, blocking him from returning. Over the roar shouts could be heard, but Harry blocked them out as the he watched Bruce and the pinched faced man fall at the hands of the hooded figure.  Once they lay motionless below (whether they were dead or just unconscious Harry did not know) the figure before them lowered its hood. Evelyn stood in front of them, eyes alive with a blaze not unlike the one that encircled them, a heat radiating from both alike.

       She made quick work of removing the nooses and cutting the ropes on their hands. Snape looked positively shocked, and Harry couldn't blame him. He had obviously accepted their fate long ago. That was not to say Harry was not shocked either, for he felt as though he might have closed his eyes and drifted off in his imagination, and that Evelyn had not really come. If this was the case, he decided, then he didn't want to come back to reality. He returned his attention the  present, for they were free of their bonds, and Evelyn was pushing them off the trapdoors. She raised her arm above her head, hair flying wildly in the air spiralling up from the centre of the firestorm, and performed a cutting motion with her wand. The flames split so that a long passage shot out before them, a wall of fire on each side.

      "Come!" she shouted at them as she thundered down the steps of the platform.

     They followed without hesitation, and sprinted after her for what seemed to be forever. Above the towering flames Harry could see the very tips of the thatched roofs flying by; such speed Harry was sure he had never accomplished without the aid of a broomstick. Shouts followed not far behind them, outside of the roaring barrier, and he ran even faster. Adrenaline was the only thing that kept Harry going, for under any other circumstance his shaky legs would surely have given out long before. He did not question where they had to run, but merely followed until they reached a grassy hillside and the fire suddenly disappeared. Once there Evelyn didn't hesitate for a second. She grabbed a hold of both Snape and Harry, spun on her heel, and beckoned upon blackness until it engulfed them.