Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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
- 12
- 13
- 14
The school was in chaos. Hagrid crashed through a window just a few feet ahead of him, Fang slobbering and barking his head off.
“Hagrid! What’re you doing here?” Harry yelled.
The half-giant stood up, his black eyes twinkling merrily like he was having the time of his life. “I ‘eard his Loathsomeness talking all the way up in the cave where me and Grawp were ‘idin’. It was past midnight and I figured it was time we brought ourselves into the fightin’.”
“Oh, well, it’s good to see you, Hagrid.”
“Likewise, ‘Arry.”
Suddenly, an enormous hairy leg forced itself through the window. Following it was the equally hair body and beady eyes of an Acromantula. Nearby teachers began shouting and throwing spells at the arachnid.
Hagrid charged off, yelling, “Don’t ‘urt ‘em. Stop it, willya?”
Was he talking to the teachers or the spiders? Harry didn’t have time to learn either way. Neville and Professor Sprout charged past carrying mandrakes to lob over the castle walls. Neville paused briefly when he saw Harry. But, other than a short nod, he didn’t stop to speak. The pictures were filled with scurrying figures, screaming in jumbled, indistinguishable voices about conflicting news from other parts of the castle.
The floor beneath him shook, nearly pitching him off his feet, and plaster drifted down from above. He could hear shrieks and the whine and bang of various spells as well as the screams of the injured and dying.
He’d barely made it to the painting of Barnabas the Barmy when he heard footsteps coming in the opposite direction. He pulled out Draco’s wand just in time to see Hermione and Ron come careening down the hallway.
“Ron! Hermione!” He would have hugged them but they were both holding an armful of bones.
“Harry, good to see you, mate. Did you find it?” Ron panted.
“Not yet. It’s a diadem, Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem,” Harry spoke hurriedly. “I remember seeing it in my sixth year in the Room of Requirement. I actually touched it!”
“So why’re we standing out here then? Let’s go!” Ron demanded.
Harry eyed their burden. “Hermione, why’d you bring those?”
“What, the basilisk fangs? After I stabbed the cup, I thought we could use them to destroy the last Horcrux,” she said as she hefted them in her hands.
“You stabbed the cup?”
“I thought she should get a turn,” Ron said, shrugging.
“Good thinking. But I don’t think you can stab the diadem. We’ll have to find another way.” Harry paced back and forth in front of the wall. “How’d you find me, anyway?”
“Snape was waiting for us when we came out of the Chamber. He had the Marauder’s Map and showed us where you were headed,” Hermione said.
The bronze handle appeared but Harry’s attention was suddenly elsewhere. “Then…how come he isn’t with you?” he asked slowly.
Hermione looked uncomfortable. “Well, he wanted to find Draco. He’s not among the other Slytherins who took off and no one else seems to care about him. So…”
“Harry, we can’t afford to think about Snape right now,” Ron said sternly. “So let’s get inside and find this damned diadem.”
Harry was seized with a terrible fear, his heart hammering in his chest so hard he nearly choked. He didn’t know where Severus was; the man could be in terrible danger.
But he didn’t have time to search for him, not with the chaos that had erupted all around them. He yanked open the door, aware of his two friends staring intently at him.
Harry froze again, Ron and Hermione bumping into him. The room was filled again with even more people than had been in it earlier. In the sudden confusion produced by his entrance, he made out Kingsley Shacklebolt, Remus Lupin, Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, Bill and Fleur and Mr. And Mrs. Weasley. The twins were there, too, grinning like loons. To his shock, he could see Luna as well as Dean and a host of other older children.
“Harry, it’s great to see you alive and well,” Remus shot forward and gripped him hard by the hand. “What’s happening?”
“Voldemort’s on his way, students are being evacuated, they’re getting the school barricaded.” The words tumbled from him in a rush. “What are you all doing here/”
Fred held up one of the fake Galleons Hermione had given them in fifth year. Once we heard what was happening, we sent messages to the rest of the D.A. members and they got the word out to the Order of the Phoenix members…”
“…and it all snowballed from there,” George finished. “We couldn’t let you have all the fun, could we, Harry?”
“Did you all get here from the Hog’s Head?”
“You bet. The bartender is practically chewing his whiskers at having people traipsing in and out of his place all night. Say, did you know he’s…?”
“Dumbledore’s brother? Yeah, Neville spilled it to me.”
“Oh. Right then,” Fred said, crestfallen. “So what’s the plan, Harry?”
“The plan is for the underage kids to leave. The rest of us are fighting.”
There was a roar of approval and all the assorted team, D.A. students and seasoned Phoenix members alike, rushed for the door. Mrs. Weasley caught Ginny’s arm just as she was about to leave with the others.
“You’re not going anywhere, young lady!” she cried.
“But, mum, I’ve been practicing with the rest of Dumbledore’s Army! I can fight!”
“You’re underage! She’s only 16. What were you thinking, bringing her here?” she barked at the twins.
Fred and George looked slightly ashamed. But Ginny protested, “Mum, I’m old enough to fight. You can’t expect me to stay cooped up here while everybody I care about…” She caught Harry’s eyes and her cheeks went faintly pink. “I can’t stay behind not knowing what’s happening,” she finished quietly.
“Mrs. Weasley, she has to leave. We need this room cleared,” Harry stated firmly. The room couldn’t transform if there were still users inside it.
“You do? But what’re you going to be doing?” Mr. Weasley asked, eyebrows raised.
“We’re finishing something Dumbledore set us to do. But we need everybody out of this room. Now.”
Ginny grinned, happy to be released. She threw her arms around Harry and kissed him soundly, much to his embarrassment.
Harry was glad to see her, really he was. But it wasn’t the joy he’d known when they’d kissed on his 17th birthday. He was mildly stunned when he realized that he hadn’t thought about her in days. He swallowed and said, “Ginny, I want you to come right back here after we’ve gone. You hear me?” he yelled as she ran out with the others.
“Hang on, Harry. I just thought of something.”
“What is it, Ron?” Hermione asked.
“We need to get the house-elves out.”
Harry asked, “You want the house-elves to fight?
“No, I mean, it’s like with the goblins. They shouldn’t get involved in wizarding wars. This isn’t their fight.”
Hermione gave a shriek and dropped her basilisk fangs. She launched herself at Ron and kissed him. Ron froze and then let his fangs fall so he could embrace her.
Harry gaped at them. “Come on, you two! Did you forget what we came for? Is now the time?”
The two came up for air and Ron gave him a sappy grin. “Better now than never, mate?”
“Who knows when we’ll get another chance, Harry?”
He threw up his hands. “Fine.” Who was he to talk? Hadn’t he exchanged a very heated kiss with Severus less than an hour ago?
Ron and Hermione finally parted, both of them looking very red in the face.
They stepped outside the Room of Requirement. In the little time they’d been there, matters had deteriorated greatly. There was more debris littering the halls, the shouts and screams were louder and seemed to be coming from everywhere.
Harry was tempted to race towards the sounds of battle. All of this was for him, after all. If he only went to Voldemort, it would put an end to the fighting before anyone else died.
“Harry, it’s time.” At Ron’s sobering words, he sighed and marched back and forth, thinking of the place where things were hidden.
__________
Inside, the Room looked more jumbled and crowded than ever. It was the size of a warehouse, with towering corridors built by generations of thousands of students. Hermione and Ron stared in bewilderment. “Goodness, what a lot of junk.” Hermione sneezed gustily. “And dusty, too,” she sniffled, wiping her nose.
“Harry, what are we looking for?”
“A bust of a really ugly wizard. It’s got a wig and the diadem’s on it. That is, if no one’s moved it.” He couldn’t remember what path he’d taken when he’d hidden his Potions book here. “Just spread out, you two. You’ll know it when you find it.”
“Accio Diadem!” Ron cried. Nothing happened. He shrugged sheepishly. “It was worth a try.”
Evidently the diadem could not be Summoned. It seemed, once an item became a Horcrux, it was no longer subject to the properties of ordinary magic.
Harry started walking, trying to remember the path he took in sixth year. There was the stuffed troll he’d passed and the Vanishing Cabinet Draco had used to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts last year. Then he paused, uncertain. He had turned left…or was it right?
He could hear Hermione and Ron talking to each other, their voices echoing in the vastness of the room. Except for them, it was deathly quiet with no sounds from the battle taking place inside the castle proper.
What was happening while he was searching here? Was Severus all right? Had he found the loathsome Draco? Or was he in terrible danger from other members of the Dark Lord’s army? Surely Voldemort had missed the presence of his most powerful Death Eater by now. What if Severus had carried out his earlier threat and gone to Voldemort, hoping to kill Nagini?
It was no use tormenting himself with these questions. Like Ron said, there was nothing he could do for Severus or anyone until all of Voldemort’s soul shards had been destroyed.
Deeper and deeper into the maze of lost and forgotten objects he went, looking for any items he recognized from his one trip into the room. Then he saw it, straight ahead: the battered broken-down cupboard in which he had hidden the Potions book of the Half-Blood Prince and, atop it, the bust of the hideous old warlock wearing a lopsided wig and what looked like an ancient, tattered tiara.
It was almost within his reach and then he heard a voice behind him say, “Hold it, Potter.”
He spun around to see Draco and his two walking bookends, Crabbe and Goyle. All three had their wands out, pointed at him. Draco’s eyes narrowed. “That’s my wand you’re holding, Potter.”
“The wand chooses the wizard, Malfoy. Finders keepers. Who gave you yours?”
“My mother.”
Harry laughed although the situation was anything but funny. He couldn’t believe it. He’d been this close and now he was going to be thwarted by the ferret and his pathetic goons. He couldn’t hear Ron and Hermione. Hopefully Draco didn’t know about them or where they were.
“We stayed behind,” Crabbe said. “We’re gonna be rewarded for bringin’ you in, Potter.” The voice of the large boy was startlingly soft. Harry realized he’d almost never heard him speak before now.
“How’d you guys get in here anyway?” Distraction – he had to keep them distracted. He edged slowly back towards the bust, hoping he could get his hands on the diadem before the inevitable fight broke out.
“We learned Diss’lussion Charms this year. We was ‘angin’ out ‘ere and suddenly you turns up!” Crabbe broke out in an idiotic grin that Harry wanted to curse right off his face. “And we ‘eard you talkin’ about this diadum thing!”
“Harry? Are you talking to someone?” Ron’s voice came from a nearby corridor.
Crabbe’s wand whipped out, faster than Harry would have thought possible for someone his size, and pointed at a nearby towering stack. Before he could voice the spell, a crimson bolt of light hit him from behind and he dropped like a stone.
Goyle gaped at his fallen comrade. Before either he or Draco could recover, Harry snapped off, “Mobilicorpus!”, sending Goyle flying towards the ceiling. The fat boy shot up like a cork from a bottle and began spinning in the air, yelling like an uprooted mandrake.
Harry ran towards the diadem. Draco waved his wand but a voice Harry was thrilled to hear snarled, “What is going on here?”
Draco looked behind him, silver eyes widening. Severus stood there, his wand extended towards the Malfoy brat. “Headmaster? What are you doing? I’ve got Potter! We can give him to the Dark Lord!”
“Why should we do that, Mr. Malfoy?” Severus was speaking in an almost bored tone, slinking closer to Draco while appearing unnoticing of what he was doing.
“Are you crazy? Didn’t you hear the message earlier? We have to turn Potter over to him! Don’t move, Potter!” Draco yelled as Harry tried to edge towards the diadem again.
“Draco, you are an imbecile,” Severus sneered. “What do you hope to gain by handing over Potter to that madman?”
“Madman? What are you – ?”
“Harry?” Hermione rounded the corner, skidding to a halt when she Severus.
Goyle had recovered, in spite of his upside down position. He waved his wand at Crabbe and yelled, “Finite Incantatem!”
Crabbe leaped up and aimed at Hermione. “AVADA KEDAVRA!”
The green fire sped towards the girl. Ron tackled her, pushing her to the floor, and it flew harmlessly over her head.
Fury that Crabbe should use the Killing Curse wiped everything else out of Harry’s mind. He threw a Bone-Shattering Hex that Severus had taught him and grinned when it hit Crabbe squarely in his wand arm. The boy gave a howl of pain and dropped his wand. He fell to his knees, clutching his injured limb.
Draco spun towards Harry again but Severus hit him with a Body-Bind Charm. His mother’s wand clattered out of Draco’s hand and rolled out of sight under a mass of debris.
Harry snatched up the diadem and held it close, steeling himself against the Dark magic throbbing through it. Ron and Hermione came running up, their wands pointed at the captives. Draco’s expression grew bewildered as he stared at his fellow Slytherin. “Why are you doing this, Headmaster? You’re supposed to be on our side! You killed Dumbledore last year!”
“Actually, I didn’t.” He gazed up at Goyle curiously and Summoned the dangling boy’s wand. Lowering him with an unceremonious thud to the floor, he left him trussed up next to his injured comrade. “Harry, where did you learn that spell?”
Harry flushed. “Um, from your Potions book.” He reached into the cabinet and pulled out the worn book. Opening the cover, he pointed to the words Property of the Half-Blood Prince.
A smile softened Severus’s face. “I hope you made good use of it.”
“If by good use, you mean carving me up like a Christmas fowl, then I’ll say he did!” Draco said, his features twisting in fury. “Headmaster, please. You don’t understand. The Dark Lord is furious with my family. Giving up Potter is the only way to return to his favor.”
Severus gave him a deeply disgusted look. “Haven’t you realized by now, you moronic boy, that there is no favoritism with him, at least not for very long?”
Harry smirked at Draco and tucked the book away in his robes. He’d always hoped to get his hands back on it someday.
Their attention elsewhere, they didn’t notice the other unrestrained Slytherin. Crabbe was in agony but his fury was greater than his pain. He snatched up his fallen wand with his uninjured hand and yelled, “FIENDFYRE!”
Severus went ashen and yelled, “NO!”
It was too late. The spell sizzled out of the end of Crabbe’s wand. A streak of fire sped towards Harry. He ducked, dropping the diadem. The magical fire hit the cabinet behind it and it immediately went up in flames.
Harry yelled, “Aguamenti!” but it had no effect.
Severus pulled him by his robe, yanking him away. “It’s a cursed fire, Harry! Ordinary spells won’t affect it!” he yelled above the roar of the flames.
The fire had covered the diadem but Harry could still make out its shape. He was about to reach for it when Severus snatched his hand away.
“Wait, what are you – ?”
“Leave it, Harry. It will be all right,” Severus said with a peculiar emphasis.
“Can’t you stop the fire?”
The older Slytherin said grimly, “No. Only the caster can stop this particular kind of curse. CRABBE!” he roared. “Cast the counterspell!”
Crabbe wobbled upright, his useless arm dangling, and began running towards the exit. Either he didn’t know the counterspell or he was too frightened to remember it. With a curse, Severus released Goyle and Malfoy from the Body-Bind and took off at a dead run, dragging Harry with him.
The flames finished with the cabinet and swiftly latched on to the nearest corridor. The fire was like nothing Harry had ever seen. The glowing flickers assumed the shapes of mythical beasts, devouring with hungry fiery jaws everything in their path. In seconds, the entire corridor they were standing in became an inferno as they raced towards the exit.
Harry coughed. The air was becoming clogged with smoke. He could barely make out Severus running at his side. As he streaked through the twisting corridor, he heard piercing screams coming from behind him.
Malfoy and his goons – he didn’t see them ahead or behind. Skidding to a stop, Harry looked about wildly. His abrupt motion pulled him from Severus’s hold and he quickly grabbed a pair of brooms from amid the detritus.
“Harry, you fool! What do you think you’re doing?” Severus yelled.
“Ron, Hermione! Get on this broom!”
“Harry, we have to get out of here!” Hermione cried, the flames reflected in her wide gaze.
Harry didn’t answer, only saddled his broom. When Severus climbed behind him, he kicked off and soared above the flames.
Up here the air was thinner, eaten away by the fires raging through the room. He heard another thin scream, high and terrified, and zoomed towards it.
Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy were perched on a desk. It tottered precariously as the flames ate away at their supports.
Ron shouted, “Harry, if we die rescuing these prats, I’ll never forgive you!” He and Hermione grabbed at Goyle while Harry caught Malfoy. Crabbe gibbered, thinking he was about to be left behind. Severus clucked his teeth in impatience and used a spell to levitate the boy.
They streaked towards the entrance. The brooms wobbled dangerously; evidently they’d been abandoned among the rest of this junk for a very good reason. But they bore their burdens even as the eldritch fire roared and nipped at their heels.
The door flung itself open and the flyers soared through it, barely making it past the flames. Once in the corridor, the door slammed shut and the handle disappeared.
Harry didn’t think anything could have survived that fire. It seemed that the Room of Requirement was closed for business.

TBC
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Onward into the Breach