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Onward into the Breach	By : QueenB Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 8398 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in anyway, shape or form. The rights of such belong solely to J.K Rowling. I do not make any money or accrue any monetary benefit on this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Voldemort’s rage was a constant low surge of pain now, pulsing in Harry’s head until he could feel it throbbing behind his eyeballs.
How could he find the Gray Lady? Should he shout for her, call, hope she would manifest herself and he’d just stumble across her?
Belatedly, he thought of his friends. Had they gone to the Chamber of Secrets yet? Without the Marauder’s Map, he had no way of knowing for certain. He could only pray that they were there. At least, while they were underground, they might be safe from Voldemort.
As he was rounding yet another corridor, he heard noises coming from ahead and slowed to listen.
“Flitwick, have you seen those blasted Carrows?” That was Professor Sprout and he could hear the higher pitched tones of the tiny Flitwick answering.
“No, I haven’t. But you’ve felt it too, haven’t you?”
“I’m not sure what I’ve felt. I’ve been so depressed and miserable for months. But now it’s as if…”
“That pressure is completely absent.”
“Yes! That’s it!” she said excitedly.
“Those damn dementors are gone. I saw them floating towards the school gates.”
“Splendid! Detestable things! Good riddance to them, I say!” There was a short pause. “But why would they leave unless… Oh. Y-You think they’ve been summoned, then?”
“To the side of their master.”
There was another pause, deeper and more ominous. Harry turned the corner and saw the woman bent over Flitwick, their faces creased with worry. Deciding this was an opportunity not to be wasted, he removed his Cloak and stepped into the light from their wands.
“Professors?”
The two spun around, wands at the ready, only to stop dead when they saw him.
“Harry Potter?” Flitwick squeaked.
“Harry? Goodness, is that really you?” Sprout exclaimed.
“Yes, it is and I’m glad to see you both. You need to know… Voldemort is headed here.”
Both of them flinched and paled at hearing the dreaded name. “Oh no,” Sprout whispered.
“We’ve got to get all of the students out of here. You two should get on that right away. If the dementors and Death Eaters have been called away, block up the unnecessary exits after the students are cleared out so the enemy can’t sneak back in.”
“Harry, what will you be doing?” Sprout asked worriedly.
“I’ve got a task to perform, something that Dumbledore set me before he died. I’m almost done but I need everyone to do their part. So go now and get the students out.”
It felt odd to be ordering about two adults, both much older than himself. But neither hesitated. Sprout and Flitwick straightened and gave curt nods. They dashed off to alert and rescue their charges.
The conversation made Harry remember Draco’s trick from the previous year. There might still be a way of entering Hogwarts from the Room of Requirement. He should go there and check to see if that had been closed off by now.
It took more time than he liked to reach the seventh floor and his pacing back and forth was more of a rapid jog. But the bronze door handle appeared and he tugged it open.
He stared, his mouth open. The room inside was like nothing he’d seen before. It was huge and looked like the inside of a particularly well-furnished tree house or perhaps a gigantic ship’s cabin. Hammocks in a dizzying array of colors hung from the ceiling and from a balcony that ran around the dark wood-paneled and windowless walls. Banners signifying the various Houses were there as well: the gold Gryffindor lion on its scarlet backdrop; the black badger of Hufflepuff, set against yellow; and the bronze Ravenclaw eagle on blue. Only the green and silver of Slytherin was absent. There were bookcases, broomsticks propped against the walls and, in the corner, a large wooden-cased wireless.
“Harry?”
He whipped around, his wand at the ready, and cursed himself for not remaining under his Cloak. Draco had used this room last year. Who knew who was in it now?
A battered young man stepped from behind one of the bookcases, his wand out. Other people were cautiously emerging, all of them armed.
The familiar face of Neville Longbottom creased in a smile. He rushed forward, arms out, roaring, “HARRY! HARRY POTTER! I knew you’d come back! I just knew it!” He caught Harry up in a bone-crushing hug and Harry returned it, idiotically happy to see one of his old house mates alive!
One by one other faces appeared: an unknown in Gryffindor colors, his face puffed and bruised beyond recognition, Lavender Brown, Padma and Parvati Pail, Terry Boot, Ernie Macmillan, Anthony Goldstein and Michael Corner.
“Is that really Harry?” Ernie asked.
“Harry, we were so worried!” Parvati cried.
“Speak for yourself,” Terry retorted. “I’ve been hearing the news about you, Harry. I knew you were all right. Is it true you rode on the back of a dragon?” he asked, his eyes gleaming.
“Yeah, we did.”
“Cool!”
“Where’s Ron?” Lavender asked, her eyes peering over him as though Ron were in hiding.
“He and Hermione are inside the school. They’re safe.”
“Neville, budge over, will ya! Let us have a look!” and Harry recognized the unknown Gryffindor as Seamus Finnigan. He hadn’t known him until he spoke. His face was so puffed up, his features were indistinguishable. Now that Neville wasn’t hugging him, he could see how badly the other teenager had fared. There was a deep scratch on Neville’s cheek, one eye was yellowing and his lips were swollen and crusted with bloody scabs.
“Neville, what happened to you and Seamus?”
Neville shrugged, his face never losing that happy grin. “Nothing much. You know the Carrows, yeah?”
“We’ve crossed paths,” Harry said grimly. Seeing them up close tonight had been an ugly reminder of that awful night at the top of Hogwarts’s highest tower.
“You have? Well, they’ve been put in charge of teaching the Dark Arts.”
“What?”
“That’s the new regime around here. They’re teaching Unforgiveables to the students. Only some of us refuse to cast curses on the others,” Seamus said, touching his bruised face gingerly.
“So we get banged around a bit. But who cares? You’re here now!” Neville said, smiling through his injuries.
Time was slipping away, but Harry was curious. “How’d you get the Room of Requirement to do all this?”
“Neville discovered this room again and found out what it could really do. He really gets this room and he figured out how to keep the Carrows from finding it or any of us,” Seamus added with a grin.
Neville shrugged with a grin. “I was on the run from the Carrows and the Room just appeared like it did in fifth year. It wasn’t this big or comfy though. There was just the one hammock and Gryffindor hanging. But, as all the other members of the D.A. showed up, the Room just kept expanding and giving us whatever we wanted.”
“Except for food,” Seamus said with a sigh.
“Food is one of the five exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration,” Harry said, remembering Hermione’s recital.
Neville stared at him. “Right. So when I started getting really hungry, a door opened up, letting us into the Hogs Head. I went through it and met Aberforth…”
“Aberforth?” Harry knew that name too well. It had been mentioned in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore along with Ariana. But surely he’d been separated from his brother for years. How did he suddenly enter the picture?
Neville grinned at Harry’s surprise. “Dumbledore’s brother. He’s been posing as Tom the bartender all these years.”
“Yeah, that was a shock, finding that out,” Terry muttered. “You’d think that Dumbledore would let people know he had family about the place.”
A flash of memory: Headmaster Dumbledore confronting a changed Tom Riddle, calmly mentioning that he knew about the presence of Tom’s cohorts waiting in an inn because he had a friend in the local bartenders.
The sly old man. He had kept his secrets and kept them well. Thanks to Aberforth, Dumbledore had had a well-placed and well-hidden faithful spy who’d reported to him all the comings and goings in Hogsmeade. No wonder Dumbledore had always seemed so well informed about things he couldn’t have known about otherwise.
“So we’ve been hiding out here. And when more and more members showed up, the Room just kept enlarging and creating more supplies. Books about spells, clothes, hammocks, even decent toilets once the girls came.”
“Yeah, it was a real stink when we got here, I can tell you,” Parvati grimaced.
“So why’re you here now, Harry?” Neville asked, apparently just realizing Harry’s appearance wasn’t just a social call.
“I was checking to see that nobody could come through this room like they did last year. I’ve told Flitwick and Sprout to start evacuating the school.”
“Evacuate?” Padma yelped. “Why?”
“Voldemort’s coming.”
The name caused a pall to descend over the gathering. Then Neville thrust his shoulders back. “All right, everybody. This is what we’ve been training for. It’s time to fight. Harry, what do you want us to do?”
“Do? I told you, the school’s being evacuated. Now’s the time for you lot to leave!” Harry protested.
“No way!”
“Sod that, mate!”
“You can’t be serious!”
The protests and denials flew from all sides until Neville held up his hands. “Harry, you can’t be serious. We’ve been holed up here for yonks, training for this day. And you want us to just scarper off?”
“Training? Why?”
“You’re kidding, aren’t ya, mate?” Terry scowled. “Dumbledore’s Army, remember? Hermione gathered us together and you taught us to fight. Just because you went into hiding doesn’t mean we gave up.”
“Look, I’m glad you’ve all kept up on the training. But you can’t stay. He’s coming and he’s worse than any Death Eater.”
“Then let us deal with the Death Eaters first!” Neville retorted. “It’s what you trained us for, Harry, and we haven’t forgotten any of it. If it’s time to fight, then we’re ready.”
“So what’s the plan?” Seamus asked eagerly.
“Plan?”
“What are you, Ron and Hermione going to be doing?”
“Well, see, the thing is…we’re not back to stay,” Harry said cagily.
Lavender’s face fell. “You’re not? But where are you going?”
“We’ve got something we need to do. Something Dumbledore demanded we do.”
“Then let us help,” Neville demanded.
“No, you can’t! It was set just for the three of us. We can’t let you in on it.”
“Why not?” Michael demanded, his face twisting in an unhappy frown. “Don’t you get it, Harry? We’re DUMBLEDORE’S Army! If the Headmaster left it to you, then it concerns all of us!”
“Yeah, don’t leave us out of it,” Anthony protested. “What can we do to help?”
“You can’t. I’m sorry but you can’t. The best thing you can do is leave the school.”
The happiness they’d all shown at seeing him had completely vanished. Disappointment and anger hardened their faces. Neville crossed his arms and stared at him.
“Look, Harry. I know you’ve probably been having a rough time of it, being on the run. That attack on Gringotts must have been hell itself. But things have been hard on us, too, watching our backs, tending our own injuries, hiding from the Carrows. Now you’re here and we’re ready to fight. But you won’t trust us to help you. That’s really low, Harry.”
Suddenly, Harry was fed up with it all. Severus had underestimated him and his friends, leaving them behind to infiltrate Gringotts. Dumbledore had saddled him with an almost impossible task. Now they were down to the wire, with Voldemort breathing down his neck. And here was Neville challenging him!
Severus wouldn’t put up with this shit and Harry wasn’t going to either. He stepped right up to the chubby Gryffindor until he was toe to toe with him.
“Listen to me, Neville,” he said, his voice getting low and angry. “You’re right. I have been having the devil’s own time of it. We’ve been running around on our own trying to bring down Voldemort.”
He paused to watch Neville shiver slightly at the name and continued in a harder tone.
“We all have our parts to play. Bill Weasley said so and he’s been doing this sort of thing a lot longer than most of us. I just told Flitwick and Sprout what to do and they did it – without questions. Now you’re getting pissed off because we’re not playing Truth or Dare? It’s time to grow up, Neville!”
He stepped back, watching in satisfaction as Neville deflated. The boy was clearly uncertain how to handle this new Harry and that was just as Harry wanted it. “Now it’s time for you lot to get out of here. If you’re going to fight, I can’t stop you. Just make sure you stay safe and get out any underage kids you see hanging around. Got it?”
A murmur of assent met him as the others stared at him, equally caught off balance. They shuffled out of the room, shooting him sidelong glances as they went.
Harry took a lingering look at the Room. It was amazing what this place could do. He’d barely explored its wonders while at Hogwarts and lamented the years he’d been ignorant of its existence. If he had the time, he would have liked to explore it further. Harry slipped under the Cloak again and let the door fall shut.
The school was filled with students spreading along the corridors and rushing towards the great Hall. McGonagall was there with the other teachers, shouting to be heard above the chaos. All the younger students were being herded out, some of them curious, quite a few of them crying as the seriousness of the situation was impressed on them.
The Slytherins were also leaving and Harry squinted as he searched among them for that familiar patch of silver blond hair belonging to the hateful Draco. The boy was nowhere to be seen and that made him really nervous. The arse had proven to be a menace, letting Death Eaters into the school and plotting to kill Dumbledore. Harry had been the only one to realize Draco was up to no good and no one had listened to him. But he didn’t have time to search for the ferret now so he forced his concern about the Malfoy prat from his mind.
Before he could come forward, a voice echoed throughout the Hall. It was high, cold and clear as shards of glass. There was no telling from where it came; it seemed to issue from the walls themselves. Like the basilisk it had once commanded, it might have lain dormant for centuries.
“I know that you are preparing to fight.” There were screams from the students. White-faced children clutched each other, looking around in terror for the source of that voice. “Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood.
“Give me Harry Potter,” said Voldemort’s voice, “and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and you shall be rewarded.
“You have until midnight.”
Time had just run out. Harry could see spectral figures floating through the air, the teachers and older students lining up in attack positions. McGonagall cried out a spell and all the suits of armor jumped out of their places as she demanded they protect the school.
Harry searched among the ghosts. He didn’t see anyone that fit Severus’s description of the Gray Lady. Catching sight of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, he pulled off his Cloak and hid it beneath his robes. No point in it now. It was too crowded; there was no way he could get across the hall without bumping into anyone and alerting people someone invisible was moving among them.
“Nick? Hey, NICK!”
As he ran, he heard people calling his name and turning to look. “Harry?” “Harry!” “Look, it’s him!” “Harry Potter!” “He’s alive!” “It’s Potter!”
Pansy Parkinson’s eyes dug into him and she shrieked, “He’s there! Potter’s there! Somebody grab him! The Dark Lord wants him!”
The Slytherins turned, many pulling out their wands and moving towards him. All across the Hall, other students whipped out their wands and the house of the snake found itself facing off against a phalanx of armed and hostile opponents.
McGonagall’s lips thinned. “Professor Slughorn, do be so kind as to take the students of your house out of here. You may stay with them in whatever safe house you find.”
Slughorn nodded and ushered the Slytherins out of doors. He avoided the eyes of the other teachers and students as he left.
Then McGonagall strode up to Harry. “Harry! I’m so happy to see…”
“Professor. I have to get through. I need to find something.”
“You do? Didn’t you hear – ?”
“I did. That’s why I have to get going. It’s very important. Please!”
She backed off in confusion and he streaked towards the ghost of Gryffindor Tower. The beruffled shade paused and gazed at him, delight splitting the translucent face into a wide smile. “Harry? Dear boy, we were hoping you were still alive!”
“Thanks, Nick. Look, I need your help.”
The ghost drew itself up, his head wobbling in his haste. “You may count on me, young Harry. What do you wish of me?”
“I need to find the Gray Lady, the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower.”
Sir Nicholas’s face fell. “Ravenclaw? Surely you require Gryffindor assistance? I can help, you know.”
“You’ll be helping if you let me know where she is.”
The ghost was clearly disappointed but he searched the nearby halls. “There she is. That woman floating over there.”
Harry turned. High above the heads of the other students, so shrouded in shadow he almost missed her, a ghost with long hair floated serenely away from the chaos. He dashed after her, ignoring Nick’s calls.
She floated away, turning a corridor and nearly disappeared through a wall before he caught up with her. Once rounding the corner of a corridor into which she had disappeared, he saw her at the very end of the passage, still gliding smoothly away from him.
“Hey – wait – come back!”
She paused, floating a few inches from the ground. She certainly looked young, although he knew how little that mattered concerning her true age. She had a haughty expression, as proud as that of the Bloody Baron. He recognized her as someone he had passed many times over the years but to whom he had never spoken.
“You’re the Gray Lady? The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?”
“That is correct.”
Her tone wasn’t very encouraging.
“Please. I need some help. I need to know anything you can tell me about the lost diadem.”
She smiled coldly. “I am afraid that I cannot help you.” She turned to leave.
“WAIT!”
He hadn’t meant to shout, but panic was gripping him tight by the throat. Time was slipping away with every passing minute. He glanced at his watch as she hovered in front of him. It was a quarter to midnight.
“This is urgent. If the diadem is anywhere in Hogwarts, I have to find it fast.”
“You are hardly the first student to covet the diadem,” she said with a glare of disdain. “Generations of Ravenclaws have hounded me for its location – ”
“I’m not trying to pass a test or get better marks!” Harry shouted at her. “It’s about Voldemort! He wants the diadem but he mustn’t get his hands on it! You want to stop him, don’t you, or don’t you care since you’re dead?”
She couldn’t blush but her transparent cheeks when opaque and her voice was heated. “Of course I – how dare you suggest – ”
“Then tell me where the diadem is!”
Now she looked flustered. “It’s not a question – My mother’s diadem…”
“Your mother’s?”
Emotion creased her pallid features but it wasn’t directed at him. “When I lived I was Helena Ravenclaw,” she whispered.
“You’re her daughter? But then you must know what happened to it!”
She wrung ghostly hands. “I-I do. I was envious of my mother’s fame, jealous at how she basked in her acclaim and never spared a thought for me. I wanted to win praise for myself, become even greater than she. So – I stole the diadem.”
Harry stared at her. Shame radiated from every inch of her and he realized how hard it was for her to speak of this. “What did you do with it?”
“I fled with it. Ashamed at what her own flesh and blood had done, she never told anyone that it was gone but pretended that it remained in her possession. Naturally, she refused requests to see it, claiming that its great gifts were for the Ravenclaw line alone. Wizards were a dreadfully secretive lot back then. Her possessiveness struck no one as strange. She concealed her loss and my horrid betrayal, even from the other founders of Hogwarts.
“Then she fell ill – fatally so. Desperate to see me one more time, she sent a man who had always loved me to search me out. He tracked me to the forest where I was hiding. When I refused to return with him, spurning his request and his love, he became violent. The baron was always hot tempered – ”
“The baron? You mean – ?”
“The Bloody Baron. Yes.” Rage darkened her features again. “Furious at my refusal and jealous of my freedom, he stabbed me.” She lifted aside the cloak she wore to reveal a dark wound in her chest. “Filled with remorse over what he’d done, he killed himself. All these centuries, he still wears the chains of his guilt – as he should.”
This was way too much sordidness coming at once. Harry prodded her. “And the diadem?”
“Where I left it – in the hollow of a tree in Albania.”
Disappointment nearly crushed him. A whole forest to search in another country and no time to do it – he had no chance now.
But – the diadem couldn’t have remained there, could it? Voldemort was here, searching for a Horcrux in Ravenclaw Tower. If the Horcrux was no longer in Albania, then Tom Riddle had found it, gotten his hands on it somehow…
He raised his eyes to the downcast shade. “You told this to him, didn’t you? Tom Riddle?”
She nodded slowly and her anger turned to shame once more. “He was a Slytherin but I forgot that. He was such an attentive young man. He seemed so charming, so understanding and sympathetic about my misery. And he was brilliant. Everybody said so. What could he possibly want with the diadem?”
Yes, Tom had been charming. Hepzibah Smith and Ginny had learned that, to their cost. Tom had swayed so many with his silver tongue to join his pureblood crusade. Only Dumbledore had ever seen through him.
Tom Riddle must have found the diadem after he left Hogwarts and then hidden it in the school – “When he came back to the school, asking Dumbledore for a job!” Harry shouted. He raced off again, leaving behind the bewildered ghost.
Tom thought he knew Hogwarts, had penetrated all his secrets. He must have hidden the Horcrux somewhere he thought no one would ever find it.
The Room of Requirement. He had seen it briefly in Voldemort’s mind as he flew towards Hogwarts; he just hadn’t realized its significance. It had been the hiding place for generations of students, even before Dumbledore’s Army had shown up. Tom Riddle would have been vain enough to think the diadem would remain hidden forever, lost in a welter of trash accumulated throughout the ages. Why, he himself had hidden his precious Potions book there under a bust covered with a dusty wig… and a diadem.
He skidded to a halt as the light broke in on him. That diadem that he’d just taken for a cheap piece of costume jewelry had been right in front of him and he hadn’t known.
Filled with the certainty of his discovery, he dashed upwards towards the seventh floor.

TBC
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Onward into the Breach