Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

A Grim Realization

Day 11

 

Harry had long lost count of how many hours, or even days had passed since he had been locked in McTavish's rooms. He had only been in McTavish's office for a little while before he moved him to a spare bedroom, but after that, the days blurred together.

In a haze of confusion and muddled time, Harry sat with his back against the wall in the empty spare room, unable to hear what was going on outside in McTavish's lab thanks to what he supposed were silencing charms. There was no bed, only an empty room and a pot in the corner for Harry to go to the bathroom in. A bowl of water was brought to Harry every day, as well as stale bread. He had to ration the water and food, but today he had started to feel too ill to eat anything.

He had awoken from slumber that morning by the sound of someone coming in to bring the water. They had lit another candle, and as Harry had blinked himself awake in the flickering light he quickly found that he felt slightly feverish. It had remained relatively the same throughout the day, the pain making it all the worse, for his shoulder ached something terrible. It gave a particularly nasty throb and Harry gently felt it with his fingers. The skin was warm to the touch, and the wound still felt wet. Though his neck and whole body ached, Harry gently traced the wound with his finger, and was surprised that it was still bleeding. He was almost sick when he looked down at it. The wetness was not blood coming from the wound as he as he had thought. Instead the candlelight illuminated the yellowish looking pus seeping from the gash, and the skin around it, which was swollen and reddish purple. The edges of the hole in his sleeve were stiff with dried blood and pus. Harry looked away. From where he sat with his back against the cold stone wall he stared up the ceiling to distract himself, watching the flickering light from the candle shimmer above him.

Judging by the amount the candle had burned down, it must have been late evening when Harry felt the room start to spin beneath him as his dizziness increased. At the same time chills washed over Harry, and he wanted to cry but he had no tears left. His sweaty hair stuck to the back of his hot neck, and he slid away from the wall so that he could lie down on the rough wooden floor. Goosebumps erupted on his arms despite the fact that he was boiling hot, and then came the tremors. He closed his eyes, vague thoughts drifting through his head. Where were Snape and Evelyn? Why hadn't they come yet?

 

***

 

"Quickly!" grunted Severus, holding up the wooden board above his head, the stony earth starting to crumble away from the roof of the tunnel. One of the side supports had splintered vertically, the piece of wood above threatening to slide out of place because of it. Evelyn was waving her wand as quickly as she could to put a new wood box support together so that they could secure the crumbling earth.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Evelyn said, shaking with panic as she twisted her wand in the air, hammering the last piece of wood into place to make the box that would fit the tunnel walls once she expanded it with magic. It sat just in front of the broken one Severus was holding.

"On three I will slide it out of place, so get ready to enlarge your piece of wood," said Severus, "One ... two ... three!"

Still holding the wood from below, he slid the cracked and crumpled box support away from Evelyn. Like lightening her wand slashed through the air, and the new box made of wood expanded another foot, filling the space where Severus had slid away the supports. The trembling in the tunnel wall stopped, the earth above secure once more.

Severus vanished the splintered wood with a sweep of his wand, and the two of them sunk to their knees, facing each other in the barely illuminated tunnel.

"We cannot keep going like this," said Severus, shaking his head. "We can reinforce all we want, but if the wood isn't thick and strong enough not to crack ... it is useless."

"Are you sure you cannot conjure better wood?"

Severus shook his head, panting and dismayed. "I can make wood appear better than it is, and look dense and strong, but I cannot change its true strength. So even if I were to magically alter the wood I conjure, like the way I do with chairs, it will do us no good. The harder the wood, the more difficult to conjure out of air. I'm ... only powerful enough to conjure a soft pine, and only so thick."

"It's alright; we'll just keep working around it. It will be fine."

Severus nodded, and Evelyn tried to smile to reassure him, but she could not. The panic and terror in his eyes was evident, and it was clear that he too was trying to keep from falling apart.

"You don't have to be so strong for my sake," she said to him softly, taking his rough hand in her small one, the grime making their hands hard to see in the dim light. "I don't know how this is going to end either."

He shut his eyes tightly for a moment, and then opened them.

"Let's keep digging," he said, a small tremor in his voice, almost unnoticeable. He squeezed her hand with his. "How many feet left, did you say?"

"One hundred sixty."

They were set to be done part way through tomorrow, and the break-in would be that night. Evelyn felt her stomach pinch with fear at the thought of it. She knew the plan. She knew the layout of the building, but still they had not decided what to do with McTavish and his friends once they got them together. As the digging continued her panic spiked. What had she gotten herself into? How many people would she help murder the next day? Both she and Severus knew that was the outcome, but they feared to speak it. Despite their lack of discussion, Evelyn was quickly realizing that this was going to be the price for the freedom of the wizarding world. In the midst of her panic, and with the thought of a lifetime of guilt over those who had perished at her hand, she caught herself wondering how much she wanted to pay.

 

***

 

Day 12

5:25 PM

 

"Stop digging!" called Severus, his voice a mixture of panic and excitement as he held his wand up high in the darkness of the tunnel. "We are right below the second signalling device!"

"Up?" she asked, staring over her shoulder at him, her wand lowered.

"Up."

This part was dirtier. Evelyn's eyes got bits of dust and grime in them as she carefully swirled her wand, bits of earth raining down. They had had to lower the elevation of the tunnel in the last section so that they were below the catacombs, and now they had to bridge the gap. Severus reinforced the entranceway to the shaft as she dug, and when there was enough dirt she kicked it out from beneath her and toward him. He scooped it up with a bucket and vanished the contents, doing this again and again as the dirt piled up. Eventually they got so that a step was needed for Evelyn to keep digging up, and Severus conjured a wide, flat pine board. Evelyn cut out a small section in the shaft and wedged the wood in with a few securing spells. She stepped up onto this and continued to dig. They put three more of these in before Severus spoke.

"With your hands now," he said quickly, wand still aloft. "The signal is very strong. We are too close to the surface to use magic."

Severus scooped away the dirt that fell while Evelyn's hand scrabbled at the earth above him. It was loose in places, but after a while became hard and packed. Evelyn gasped as a stone was dislodged and fell down. She dodged it, but immediately thought of Severus below. She looked down to see if he was alright. He was panting against the tunnel shaft, the rock at his feet.

"Did the stone hit you?" Evelyn asked anxiously.

"No," said Severus, knees shaking badly. "And that ... that isn't a stone Evelyn."

"Then what is it?"

"It is a skull."

"But it's too small to be ..." She gasped suddenly, putting her filthy hand to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears.

Severus looked up at her, his eyes wide. It was the skull of a child.

"I think we found the catacombs," he said to her in a whisper.

Evelyn reached her arm up through the pitch darkness. There was no earth. It was air. Musty, stinking air that rushed in on her, cooler than the tunnel air.

"Should we go up?" whispered Evelyn, trying not to let the fear in her voice show.

"Just for a moment, to make sure it is safe for later," said Severus, sounding as though he did not like the idea. "Do you want me to go first?"

His voice was soft and gentle when he asked her, like a whisper in the wind.

"Yes," she muttered.

"Alright. Come down then."

Carefully she descended, and they shuffled around in the shaft so that he was standing where the ladder was. With determination, he grabbed a hold of the wood rungs and went up further. He widened the hole just a little, and then he waited for Evelyn to levitate the jar with the flames up to him. Its dim light would not give them away, hopefully.

Evelyn watched Severus slide out of the shaft and into the room. She climbed up when his foot disappeared from view. His hand reached down into the hole to help her up, the little jar of flames off to the side. With a soft grunt, he lifted her out of the shaft.

"Shall we take a look?" she asked nervously, trying not to breathe in through her nose, for the air was putrid.

Severus swallowed, nodding. He picked up the tiny jar of flames and held it aloft, casting a spell to make them a little bit larger. He stumbled back, almost dropping the jar.

Evelyn covered her mouth immediately, tears rushing to her eyes. They had arrived in the right place. It was indeed a side chamber like Harry had described, although it was not exactly as they had expected. He had left something out.

"We have to get him!" Severus said, his voice cracking unexpectedly as he rushed forward. She had never heard him sound like this before, and it increased her own fear tenfold.

"No!" Evelyn said, trying to keep her voice down as she grabbed Severus from behind and forced herself to keep a cool head, even though her instincts screamed for her to go get Harry too. She let out a soft sob. "We can't, we can't! We'll just get caught! Our only hope to get Harry is to go at night! It will be impossible to do it in the middle of the day!"

Severus struggled for a moment, but Evelyn tightened her arms around his chest.

"But -" he gasped, shaking from head to toe as he glanced around wildly. "Look ... they're ... l-like Harry ... Harry ..."

"Severus, I know, but we have no choice," she said, trying to stay rational as she shook with suppressed emotion at the sight of all of the children, lying silently in their graves. Those children, who were once the hopes and dreams of their families. She tried not to think about what would happen if Harry joined them.

Wordlessly steadying each other, they stepped back toward the hole in the floor of the catacombs. Severus sunk to the ground once they were down the shaft, his face in his hands. With magic she duplicated one of the boards that made up the ladder, for she could not conjure boards from the air like Severus could. She altered its size with a quick charm, and adhered a sprinkle of earth onto the top of it with a sticking charm to camouflage it. With a wave of her wand it spread out into the shape of the hole, strong and stable, and waiting to be removed that night.

So it was with shaking legs that the two of them defied every instinct, and walked the twelve thousand and five feet they had dug with magic from below Evelyn's home, the place where they emerged, dirt streaked faces riddled with fear. Despite their terror, Evelyn knew that right then they could not afford to fall apart. They had counted on these last few hours to solidify the plan, and go over it once last time. And then the break-in would begin.

Chapter End Notes:
What did you guys think of Snape's reaction to finding out what Harry left out when describing the catacombs? I enjoyed writing this chapter a lot, so I hope it showed. Anyone else getting excited (or nervous) for the break-in? Oh, and on a side note, as the lead-up to the break-in continues, and while it actually is executed, the time is going to be included too. Adds suspense, in places, I think. Bwa ha ha ... Cheers!

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