Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

A Transmission

Day 4

 

"Severus, come up," called Evelyn, bending over the hole in the ground. She heard a faint reply, some scuffling and the soft scrabble of loose dirt.

In roughly five minutes, Severus emerged from the tunnel, streaked in dirt and dripping with sweat. He was quite a mess, but Evelyn didn't mind much at all that he was getting dirt all over the floor. She had been getting as much dirt into the house as he had been, and after a day and a bit of digging, she had accepted the fact that things would only get grungier as they went on.

"How many feet is it?" Evelyn asked anxiously, for Severus had gone down with the purpose of measuring the length they had dug in the two days they had been tunnelling. They were planning on measuring it after they dug every day. She hoped that their magical methods were paying off, because she knew very well that they needed to dig a great deal more yet.

"About a hundred and eighty," said Severus, wiping his brow. "But we hardly had time to dig any yesterday, and once we have sharpened some of our spell casting - I admit I have done very little in the area of excavation charms - I daresay we might be able to dig a bit more than a hundred and fifteen feet in a solid day of digging. If we can dig one hundred and fifteen feet for the next nine days we should have a solid day before that potion is ready, which should give us enough time to break in, assuming we have planned appropriately. Of course, we're going to have to reinforce the tunnel all the way, which will take time. Some of the soil is loose in places. It is ambitious, I will admit, but I think it is attainable given the spells we have at our disposal." At that moment Severus glanced toward the window, which had its shutters drawn. Although they were drawn, there was no light seeping through the cracks in the wood. "Is it night already?" he wondered aloud, sounding surprised.

"Yes, and we have news from Harry," said Evelyn, gesturing to the parchment, which had only recently filled with scribbles and diagrams.

"Let's see it then," said Severus breathlessly as he and Evelyn clamoured to sit in the chairs at the table.

"You read it, you're closest to the candle," Evelyn replied.

Severus cleared his throat and began to read aloud. "I'm well. McTavish's lab is right across from my mentor's. I haven't many details on McTavish yet, but I should have more soon. I'll send word later on that.

"I was able to look around during the morning, but had to spend the whole afternoon of my first day, and nearly all of the second, reading and taking notes. So, I do not know as much right now as I would like. But, I think I have found a good place for you two to surface: the catacombs beneath the Potioneer's Society. I haven't had a chance to go down into them, but from what my mentor said, very few people go down there, which might make it the best place to tunnel to. I was able to convince Richard that, being a farm-boy, I was not used to big places so I needed a map. He had a simple one sent to me this morning, and I have copied it below my message. I filled in the blanks in certain areas. I also included a little x to mark my location, and big x to mark McTavish's. The floors are labelled. Send me any questions or things you must know, and I'll try to answer them as best as I can.

"All the best, Harry."

"Let's copy that map immediately," said Evelyn.

Severus tapped the parchment, and a duplicate of the letter appeared right next to it. He pushed aside the original, enchanted parchment, and Evelyn joined him to study the copy.

"Harry's on the third floor," Severus said thoughtfully, scratching his lightly stubbled chin. "There's McTavish's lab. I doubt we'll get any more for information about its interior. "

"I am betting that all the labs are built nearly the same," Evelyn replied, also poring over the map. "We can ask Harry to describe his mentor's lab and quarters, and hopefully they will be similar to McTavish's."

"Yes, I think that is the best way to go. We must ask him to look around the catacombs as well; otherwise we will be digging blindly."

"But how are we going to know where we are underground once we get near enough to surface? It isn't as though you can march into the Potioneer's Society and do another one of your tracking spells down in the catacombs."

"You are right. However, while Harry won't be able to perform the spell, Harry can plant an object with the spell upon it already. I will perform the spell in advance, and I can detect that one as well as the one I placed earlier in the flower beds if I make sure to change the signature slightly. That way we will be able to use both of the signals to line ourselves up properly, and then dig up when we hit the second."

"Brilliant," said Evelyn. "But how are we going to get the object to Harry?"

Snape frowned. "Well, they probably screen the mail ... so we cannot send it by mail, and you said yourself you cannot get through the wards with your animagus form. But there's bound to be some way to get it to him. Luckily, we have time to consider that, with the first tracking charm already in place. We can take our time in placing the second."

Severus and Evelyn fell silent for a while and continued to pore over the map.

"The floors have relatively the same design, and one main staircase that goes up to all of them," muttered Severus after a few minutes. "That could be problematic, as it is more likely for us to meet someone on the way. We will have to use disillusionment charms for sure. There does not appear to be a map of the lowest level. But Harry has written that it comes up here," - Severus tapped a quill onto the map, to a small doorway just off the entrance hall where Harry's messy writing could be found - "which means that we will have to go all the way across the entrance hall to get to the staircase. We should ask Harry to go down to that level to explore if he can, just so we have a rough idea of the dangers. There are probably servants quarters down there, although likely, all of them are house elves."

"I think Harry is right in saying that the catacombs are the best place for us to tunnel to. There will likely be few people. The house elves might pose a problem ... but they may not be aware that we are breaking in, I mean, there are enough people in that building to make it a little bit hard to keep track of all of them. If we act normally, they should hopefully think we belong at the Potioneer's Society."

"That sounds reasonable. And, I think it would be best for us to infiltrate during the night," Severus suggested curtly. "While we will have to worry about house-elves, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The crowds during the day can be advantageous for blending in, but in this case, I daresay many of the men have been there long enough to know that we should not be there. And McTavish is bound to have people tipping him off. In the night-time, while the Potioneer's Society have a large amount of security ensuring that nothing gets in from the outside, I do not believe that they have a lot of people patrolling from within. I think that is another thing we must ask Harry about. Perhaps he can sneak out at night and see."

"We'll have more time to plan that later. I'll write back to Harry to tell him to explore the catacombs for us. I don't think we should mention the tracking device just yet, if we have no solid plan of getting it there. I don't think Harry should know what he does not need to right now. I think it would be best for him to explore the catacombs before we give him anything to place down there. There may not even be somewhere we can easily surface."

"I think that is a good plan," said Severus. "Shall we shut the trap for the night?"

"I think so," said Evelyn, clearing the magical parchment with a wave of her wand and starting to write their message back to Harry.

Severus left and returned to the table with two cups of water and a plate with some bread and cheese on it. Evelyn had sent back their message, and the two ate the bread thoughtfully.

"What are we planning to do with McTavish?" asked Severus softly after a few moments. "And what about the others that know about his potion? We can destroy the potion, but in order to succeed, there must be no trace of the recipe, knowledge or otherwise."

Evelyn sighed heavily. "I don't know what to do yet. I am pretty sure that the only people who know about the potion were present at the meetings I eavesdropped on, and in that case, there are three besides McTavish. But, I don't think memory charms are going to be strong enough."

"That is the trouble, I do not think so either," Severus said, swallowing.

"That's more people than I want to silence," whispered Evelyn, voice shaking.

"I know," was the almost inaudible reply.

 

***

 

Day 5

 

Morning came early for Evelyn and Severus. They rose with the sun, and Evelyn decided that she was to be the first one digging, and Severus would do the vanishing, as well as the reinforcements on the tunnel walls. After a cup of tea and a slice of bread for each of them, they prepared to descend.

"Ready, Evelyn?" asked Severus, pulling the trapdoor open.

"I am," she replied. She was dressed yet again in an old, simple dress for digging. Severus wore the peasant-like clothes that Ellery used to own.

Severus held out his hand, and Evelyn took it. He steadied her as she stepped down into the darkness and began her way down the makeshift ladder. They had sent the little jar with flames down first, and when the flame continued to burn they determined it safe to descend. As she went down, Evelyn watched the hole above her grow smaller until her feet hit the ground.

"How are the ventilation charms holding up?" Severus called down to her.

"Just fine," she said. "There's a good breeze and the flame is still doing fine."

"Good. I'm coming down now."

Evelyn crouched over and stepped back into the tunnel as the grating sounds of Severus' boots descending on the gritty ladder rungs sounded. In a few moments he was with her, bent over double and with the bucket in hand he followed her down the narrow tunnel. She lit the little jars as she went, lighting the tunnel. They had decided to create magical replicas of the jar upstairs and had sunk them into the tunnel walls, between the wooden boards that had been used for reinforcements. The jar they took with them would be used when they were digging too far for the installed lights to be off much use.

When they reached the end of the tunnel, Evelyn started to use her wand to carve their way forward, and she filled the bucket time and time again with dirt for Severus to vanish. It was quite warm in the tunnel, considering, and damp. She quickly worked up a sweat, and behind her she could hear Severus panting. She turned around a few times to see how the shoring of the tunnel walls was coming. In the moments when they deemed it fit to reinforce Evelyn vanished the dirt herself, and Severus would wave his wand, and swirl it in the air until wooden boards appeared, and with a quick spell he would hammer them into place above, along the sides and below. The tunnel was filled with these little boxes. Evelyn hoped that they would hold well, for she too felt that the earth was soft in places.

They dug for a very long time, switching jobs every so often, occasionally working together to pull a stubborn stone out of place. It was a bit difficult for them to switch places in the tunnel to change jobs, what with how narrow it was. In order to turn around in the tunnel they had to lie on their bellies, roll onto their backs and get to their feet, still bent double. Then, to allow the other person to dig, they would have to crawl over the other person lying on their belly, and do the same process to face the digging end of the tunnel again. All of this: the digging, the switching places, and the shoring of the walls was a dirty process, and by the time they took a break for lunch Evelyn felt like she would never be clean again. There was grit under her fingernails, and in her shoes and behind her ears. Especially in her hair. The sweat and grime streaked her face, and Severus' too. They were quite a sight, panting tiredly at the table as they wolfed down the last of the bread and cheese.

"I'll definitely have to trade some more chairs tonight," Severus said after a while as they both sat and drank some water. "I would have done so earlier, but I hate to take so much time to go to the market when we should be digging."

"I know, but we need food to dig, and if we aren't hungry, we can dig faster," Evelyn replied. "See if you can get some meat and some potatoes. The potatoes will last for a while at least."

They sat in silence for some time. Evelyn felt too tired to speak, and she was sure Severus felt the same way.

Then they returned to the tunnel and Evelyn, with the help of Severus, dug as though her life depended on it. But then again, in many ways, it did. All their lives depended on it.

It was sundown when Severus returned from trading the chairs. Evelyn had had to shut the trap when he left, for they agreed that they would never go into the tunnel without the other, just in case there was a cave-in. There had already been times when chunks of earth had come down from above, and if any one of them was knocked out in the tunnel without the other person there to get them out, there would be very little hope if a significant amount of earth had come down. So, Evelyn had used her free time from digging to get washed up. She left the washtub out for Severus, sure he too would like to get the layers of grime off of him. He had washed his face up to go and trade the chairs, but there was no denying that he was still quite thoroughly covered in dirt.

"Did you get a good price?" she inquired when he came through the door to find her in the midst of putting another log on the fire in preparation for cooking.

"I did," said Severus, pleased as he held up the packages. He laid them on the table, and Evelyn inspected them. There was some salt pork, enough potatoes to last them a while, and another loaf of bread. There were even a few coins left over to get some more fresh bread from the little stall close by.

"Why don't you wash up while I start cooking?" Evelyn said. "I managed to find Ellery's old shaving kit. I imagine the dirt is getting hard to clean out of that stubble of yours."

"Have I told you how wonderful you are?" said Severus absent mindedly, looking highly pleased as Evelyn handed him the old fashioned shaving kit.

"I don't believe you have," said Evelyn, rather pleased as she sliced potatoes. Her eyes skimmed the little stack of purchases on the table. "Hang on, what's this?"

"Hmm?" asked Severus, presumably still daydreaming of being clean shaven.

"The bottle," said Evelyn, rolling her eyes.

"Someone was selling wine, and I must say, it looked quite good," said Severus rather off-handedly. "The chairs went for a great price, so I got us a bottle. We have been working too hard. I hope you do not mind."

"I don't mind in the least. In fact, you had better hurry up so we can drink it," Evelyn said cheerfully.

"Well, don't get too ahead of yourself. We should at least eat first, or it will go straight to our heads," said Severus with a slight air of humour as he filled the washtub and hung the old sheet up around it. "You would not want me around drunk, I am horribly morose." He grimaced, the expression of his face to Evelyn rather comical, and the pained tone in his voice was even more so. "I start talking about my feelings."

"Rather that than how I act. I start fighting," Evelyn said a little hesitantly, unsure as to what he would think of that.

"Do you really?" inquired Severus, disbelieving.

"I do ... unfortunately. I knocked someone's front teeth out in a pub brawl once," she said, cringing. "I'm afraid it wasn't ladylike at all. I generally avoid drinking more than I should now."

"Remind me to stay out of punching distance," he said with a chuckle before going behind the curtain. Evelyn smiled a little at this.

Soon the little home was filled with the smells of dinner. Evelyn could hardly wait for it to be ready, and it seemed forever before she had her plate before her, and a glass of wine. She had conjured two goblets from the air for them. They tucked into their meal heartily, and when they were finished eating, they simply sat and enjoyed the silence for a while, sipping their wine. It was very good, thought Evelyn. But then again, she hadn't had a glass of wine in over a year.

"I can't believe that I was able to get you two back here again," said Evelyn after a long time. "I hadn't even known in the first place that you had travelled back in time to help us. Ellery didn't tell me until we found out what McTavish's potion did. He knew you could help. I didn't believe him at first. I don't think I really did fully believe him until you showed up."

"How did you manage to get the box where I would find it?" asked Severus curiously, staring into his goblet of wine. "It practically fell on my head."

Evelyn smiled a little. "Well, Ellery had sent the first device to Hogwarts with someone who was fleeing to Hogsmeade village, as he thought that because Hogwarts has such large population of witches and wizards moving through it someone would eventually be found to come back and save us from the witch hunt. He had thought that that must have been where you two were from, given your clothing and you being a professor. So we had to find a way to get the second device there. We charmed the box until it was light enough for me to carry to Hogwarts in my animagus form. I flew there shortly before Ellery died, and asked the gamekeeper where the house elves lived. Generations of them can live in large castles like that, all working there, so they were ideal for ensuring that the box stayed in the castle. Ellery had suggested that, as he thought that it was our best bet to give it to them. I found the house elves, and told them to pass the box down, and find a way to get it to you some time after you returned from the first trip here."

Evelyn let out a heavy breath, eyes downcast.

"When I arrived home Ellery and I simply acted like the plan was going to work, and though neither of us spoke of it, we didn't think it would. We really didn't. I hadn't a shred of hope left when you and Harry showed up on my doorstep. I'm still amazed it worked, really."

"It confuses me, time travelling," said Severus thoughtfully after a few moments. "It is such a strange thing to think about. I am glad that we have a more reliable method of getting back this time."

"Yes, you were lucky last time. Ellery mixed the powder for your return in with the powder the brought you back in time, and the return magic was supposed to activate when you had done your job, help us, that is. Of course, it was a little bit delayed, I think. I really don't know how he did it."

"Fate was on our side, that is certain," Severus said, his voice low. "Harry almost died. He ... he should have died, but somehow he held on."

"It really is a wonder none of us were killed," said Evelyn. "I still dream about that day, watching you two thunder off into the trees. I always wished we could say a proper goodbye."

"As did I."

They were quiet for a moment, and Severus poured a little more wine into their goblets. The moon was shining outside, high up in the sky. But Evelyn did not care, and neither did Severus.

"Well, goodbye then," said Severus, grinning suddenly. "There. That's better."

Evelyn laughed, a little surprised at his sudden humour. "Goodbye Severus."

Both laughed this time. Perhaps it was the wine. Evelyn didn't understand why she was laughing when she knew very well that their lives hung in such a fragile balance. If they failed in their mission, and were caught, they faced death. Yet, somehow, she wasn't as scared as she should have been.

She rested her chin in her hands, her elbows on the table.

"Do you think we can actually pull this off?" asked Evelyn, eyebrows furrowed. "We're trying to break into the building with the best security that magic can create right now. We've sent an eleven year old boy to spy for us, and we've been digging like a bunch of badgers in the hopes that we'll reach the Potioneer's Society before the potion is done. Do we even stand a chance?"

Severus met Evelyn's gaze.

"No," he muttered truthfully. "We don't. But that does not mean we should not try, does it? I have been beaten at almost everything in my life before I even crossed the starting line, but that did not mean that I stopped running. Our task is daunting, but perhaps it will work out alright."

"I'm almost afraid of when all of this is over. If we succeed, we'll have to part ways anyway. I don't want to have to say goodbye again."

"Who says you have to," said Severus, leaning forward with sudden intensity, his dark eyes deep and thoughtful as he surveyed Evelyn.

"What, come back with you?" she asked, barely believing her ears.

"Why not?"

"I - I wouldn't fit in, it would all be so different," Evelyn muttered, but deep down her heart wanted nothing more than to leave the world she knew. She was tired of it. Tired of not being seen, of being looked down on. Anywhere was better than here, where she could work as hard as she physically could, and still have nothing to show for it. But she did not say these things, for a part of her was afraid that it would all go wrong, and she would never get the chance to go back. So she did not say these things. "I do not know if I could."

Severus seemed to be teetering on the edge of saying something, but after a minute or so, he seemed to deflate.

"We should get some rest," said Evelyn finally, fatigue creeping up on her senses.

"Yes ... you are right," muttered Severus, eyes downcast.

Chapter End Notes:
Hope you guys liked that one! Next chapter will have a little bit of Harry and Snape interaction, so do not worry! What do you guys think of Severus' suggestion that Evelyn should come back with them? What do you think she will do?

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