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World in Pieces	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 16431 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Fourteen—To the Attack

            “You have no idea if this is going to work.”

            Harry ignored Snape’s mutter behind him as he went on casting the charms that would darken his clothes and spread a thin but even layer of magical obscurity across his face so his glasses would be less likely to catch the light and flash. Snape had already said that, or something similar to it, four times. But Harry knew the answer, the real one. He was just saving it until Snape was done wasting his breath.

            “Untested, untried, undone,” Snape said then, and paced up and down behind Harry. Harry could see him in the mirror on the wall if he looked up, but at the moment, he was more interested in using his reflection to estimate the effect of his spells. Pretty good, so far, but it could be better. Harry cast another Obscuring Charm. “You cannot seriously think I would allow this.”

            Harry grinned and turned around to cock his head at Snape. “The very thing I was going to say, and you beat me to it,” he said.

            “What?” Snape’s snarl said his temper was getting sharp and he might as well blunt it on Harry as on anyone else.

            “You wouldn’t allow me to do this if there was a real chance of my getting hurt,” Harry said calmly. “But so far, you’ve just complained and added some spells that will make things safer. You haven’t actually tried to stop me. So that must mean that you know at bottom that it’s going to work, because you know his paranoia.” He turned back to the mirror and added one more spell, and the outlines of his glasses vanished completely to sight from outside, while still being clear enough to see through. “You’re just worried.”

            Snape took several steps closer to him, from the sound. Harry could estimate when an adult was creeping up on him to punish him, though, after Vernon, and this wasn’t one of those times. He turned back and met Snape’s eyes with his own mild gaze.

            “I. Am not. Worried,” Snape said, and finished off the words with a rattling hiss that might have done Voldemort proud.

            “Of course not,” Harry said. “Then you’re just prowling up and down and fretting for no good reason, since I know you would have done something more by now if you were going to interfere. Sir.”

            Snape stood there, his hands clenched in his sleeves, and then whirled around and disappeared out the door of Harry’s room. Harry snorted and began to check that the weapons up his sleeves were where he had put them. In this particular case, he wasn’t so much going to use them as flourish them around, but it was still easier to bring the objects with him instead of Transfiguring something at the scene.

            I don’t see what Snape’s so worried about, anyway. It’s going to be fine. I did more dangerous things than this during the war—my war, I mean. And he’s put too much time and effort into me to just let me walk away and get myself killed. He wants to be free of Voldemort, too.

            “Ready to go, then?”

            Harry paused and looked up. Percy was standing in the doorway of his room, his head twitching as though he simultaneously wanted to gape around at all the things in it and keep an eye on Harry. Harry smiled. He hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to Percy directly, just in front of his family, and this was a good time to test a theory he’d been forming.

            “Sure,” Harry said casually. “But there are times I think we should all give it up and go back to Dumbledore, you know?”

            Percy almost leaped out of his boots. Then he stared at Harry and shook his head. “Really?” he croaked.

            “Oh, sure,” Harry said, and strove for a serious expression. He wanted to get Percy’s honest opinion, not scare him off by making him think Harry was joking. “Oh, yes. He has the most battle experience, and he has the Order, and he could really make people rally to his side if he would do a couple charismatic speeches.” He let out a long, slowly dwindling sigh, stood there with his head bowed, and waited for Percy to ask the obvious questions.

            Percy leaned forwards and spent a few minutes looking at Harry instead of asking them, though. Harry stared back at him. Perhaps he’d underestimated Percy’s eagerness to get everything settled, or at least his eagerness to defy his family.

            “Why don’t you, then?” Percy whispered at last, his head moving in nervous little jerks as he looked over his shoulder for a second and then refocused his attention on Harry.

            “Because I don’t know if he would do the speeches,” Harry said, and tried to make his face look pale and tormented. Did he succeed? He didn’t know. The times that he looked most upset were the times that he wasn’t thinking about his expression, or so Hermione had told him more than once. “Because I don’t know if he would help me. What if he just tried to get me under his control again?”

            Percy hesitated again, and then spoke kindly. “Do you know that you’re the third Harry Potter they’ve summoned? I mean, think about it. It sounds like a mad thing to do, and in the middle of a war, when they need to save their strength. Did Professor Dumbledore tell you that, or is that just something you supposed?”

            Harry blinked. Then he said, “I can’t really—remember. It’s been so tense, you know? I reckon I could remember if I thought about it, and Snape was there, so he could probably put the memories in a Pensieve, but—”

            “I don’t think you should trust Snape,” Percy said at once, shaking his head. “That potion he gave you to drink? Are you sure it was Veritaserum?”

            “It felt like Veritaserum,” Harry said doubtfully. “I mean, the way that people have always told me being under it is like.”

            “But you don’t know if it was,” Percy said, and a little smile broke out on his face. Harry wondered for a moment whether he was happier that Harry might have a reason to trust Dumbledore again—as Percy thought of it—or at being proved right. With Percy in his world, it might have been either. “Just think about this. Just think about the reasons that Snape might have to be against Dumbledore.”

            “Well, Dumbledore betrayed him,” Harry began.

            “That’s the way my mum feels, too,” Percy said, with a vigorous nod of his head. “But he hasn’t actually done anything but what’s best for people and the war, has he? Think about it,” he urged again, when Harry opened his mouth. “He hasn’t said that he’d kill you, or control you, the way Snape seems to think he will. All you have is Snape’s word for it.”

            Harry bit his lip, while sighing inside. He didn’t think Percy was some kind of malicious traitor, anxious to make their plans fail because he hated them. He just didn’t believe Harry, and he respected Dumbledore. Those were the two keystones of his character.

            “Well, I suppose not,” Harry conceded at last. “But some of the things he’s said frighten me. And the way he looks at me—I know I frighten him. And he did yank me away from my world, even if he never summoned any others, and told me that they probably wouldn’t be able to get me back home.”

            “But he yielded easily when you pressed him?” Percy said, and patted his arm before Harry could even answer. “He said that there was a way to get you back? Of course he did. Of course. Dumbledore would never just yank someone away from their home like that, and demand that they fight his war. He probably just wanted you to think there wasn’t a way back so you would realize how desperate our need was.”

            Harry held back a snort, and also the desire to point out how Percy had contradicted himself, and just stared at Percy doubtfully. “But then why would Snape want to control me? Why would he want to go against Dumbledore, if he has the best plan? I know that Snape wants You-Know-Who dead, too.”

            Percy smiled, as if Harry not saying Voldemort’s name was some reassurance that he was on Dumbledore and Percy’s side. “You don’t know as much about Professor Snape as I do, Harry,” he said. “A brilliant teacher, of course he is, but he’s a bitter and angry man, too. He could be doing all this to get back at Dumbledore for some slight the man paid him, once upon a time. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

            “Oh,” Harry said, and nodded as if that was convincing. “Well, I’ll think about it. But I do still need to fight him, whatever happens with Dumbledore.”

            “But pretending to be the Headmaster is just going to get the Headmaster on the wrong side of you,” Percy said earnestly. “Don’t you see that? Of course you do,” he continued, overriding whatever response Harry would have made. “So it’s better to wait, and maybe Floo Dumbledore if you can find a fireplace in here that isn’t watched, and then see what he says.”

            “I can’t,” Harry said with mock sadness. “The plan is going to go ahead today, and I’d have a lot of things to explain if people thought I was stalling on purpose!”

            “Oh,” Percy said, as if that honestly hadn’t occurred to him. And it might not have; Harry knew lots of smart people who nevertheless didn’t think through all the consequences, like the Dumbledore and Hermione of this universe. “Can you—I don’t know, feign sick or something? I think the twins have some products you could take that would make you seem sick. Skiving Snackboxes, I think they call them.” Percy sounded more than vaguely disgusted. Of course, he’d probably never played sick in his whole life, at least to get out of going to class, Harry thought, hiding a grin behind his hand.

            “Not this close to it,” Harry said, and sighed dolorously. “Snape’s a Potions master, like you said, and a bloody good one.” Percy looked as if he was on the verge of scolding him for language, which only showed, Harry thought cynically, that he’d never left the Hogwarts prefect very far behind him. “He’d know something was wrong and investigate, and then everyone would want to know why I’d pretended.”

            “You could tell them that you were nervous,” Percy said, his words rushing past each other until it was hard to distinguish the vowel sounds from the rest. “That you didn’t want to be in battle against You-Know-Who, not really. Then they’d have to drop it.”

            Harry looked at Percy, and a moment later, Percy flushed and lowered his eyes. “No, that wouldn’t really work, would it?” Percy whispered, almost to himself. “I mean, not really.”

            “Especially not when I’ve been making a big deal of my bravery up until now, and how I have to fight,” Harry said gently. “No. I’ll carry through with this plan, and then—we’ll see. Thanks for telling me the way you feel, Percy,” he added, and he at least meant that with all his heart. It was easier knowing who his enemies were, or misguided supporters.

            Percy beamed at him. “You’re welcome, Harry. I just hate seeing teenagers forced into this war. It’s all right for us adults, we chose to fight it.” His chest puffed out, and he tapped himself on it, right, Harry couldn’t help noticing, where the prefect’s badge would have rested when he was in Hogwarts. “But no one should have made you do this.”

            Harry skipped over lots of things in his mind, such as that Dumbledore had been the one who pulled him here and forced him to take part in a war that wasn’t his own, and that Percy was only a few years older than Harry himself, and in the end only nodded. Percy turned and hastily retreated back towards the stairs. Harry put his head in his hands for a moment and shook it.

            “You are well?”

            Harry started. He’d been so involved in his conversation with Percy that he hadn’t noticed Snape coming up the stairs, back to the room—

            “Or, no, wait,” he said slowly. “If you’d been on the stairs, Percy would have passed you. You’ve been here, under a Disillusionment Charm?”

            Snape inclined his head with that weird slowness he had sometimes, never taking his eyes from Harry’s face.

            “Checking on my loyalty to the cause?” Harry couldn’t help needling him. “That I could handle the big bad temptation of breaking free of the war all by myself?” Maybe he shouldn’t talk to Snape like that, but God damn it, it was irritating not to be trusted.

*

            Severus watched Harry for a few seconds, while Harry continued to stare at him with his fists clenched. He wondered how long he should allow Harry to remain in the dark, or if he should allow it.

            Well. Harry had waited almost a full minute now, and longer if Severus counted the minutes when he had spoken to Percy without knowing that Severus was there. Perhaps it was time that Severus told him.

            “I wanted to see how you would act in front of a hostile audience,” he said quietly, sitting down across from Harry on one of the sturdy trunks that lined the walls. “Mrs. Weasley does not count as one, not when she was so eager to spring to our side.”

            Harry still watched him with his eyes shimmering with emotion. “And what do you think?”

            “A plausible lie,” Severus said. “I would not, however, try it with someone who sees you as you are.”

            “As I am,” Harry said slowly, and moved a step closer, still glaring. Severus wondered why he did not find such an expression childish. Perhaps simply because of who it was, because of his knowledge of what lay behind the glare. “Do you mean—what? A Gryffindor? Percy was a Gryffindor, too, at least in my world.”

            “As an adult,” Severus said, picking the words carefully, but not out of any intent to deceive or impress. “Not a child.”

            Harry blinked, and most of the glare went from his eyes. “Um,” he said, backing a step away and cocking his head to the side so that he was studying Severus from beneath his fringe. “Do you mean that?”

            Severus nodded. “Two days ago, I would not have, but I have seen the way you matured since then. Handling Percy Weasley’s suspicions is not something I would have thought you could do.”

            There. A tribute, plain and unadorned. The only kind, Severus thought, that Harry was likely to accept anyway.

            Harry spent another moment or so studying him, then straightened his shoulders and nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “Good. So. We’re ready to move then?”

            Severus flowed smoothly to his feet. “We are.”

*

            “But you’re sure this is the right place.”

            It was bloody weird, hearing Snape’s smooth voice coming from his own lips. Harry grimaced and resisted the urge to rub his mouth with the back of his hand. It was out of character for Snape to show that much emotion. Hell, it was probably out of character for Snape to use contractions. He would have to watch for that in the future.

            “Oh, yes, Severus. I’m absolutely sure.”

            Snape, on the other hand, made a magnificent Dumbledore. Harry watched his eyes twinkle, and wondered how long Snape had studied to get that right. Or was it something that happened naturally once you got into the Polyjuice disguise? Harry tried to analyze if he was scowling more easily now that he was Snape, but had to give it up when he realized that he didn’t know the way he normally scowled, either.

            “Then let me test it,” Harry said, and crouched down in the grass to take the first knife—in reality, a dull blade for chopping up roots that had been polished with glamours to make it look magical—out of his cloak.

            They spoke in whispers, and they had those darkening charms on their faces to make it harder for anyone spying from the forest that surrounded the clearing to see them. But Harry knew it didn’t matter. They’d Apparated here with a great deal of magic, and Snape had made sure to touch his Dark Mark in a certain way beforehand, which would somehow call the Death Eaters. And make them think he was a traitor, too.

            If Harry pulled up the sleeve of his robe, then he knew he would see the Mark—Snape’s usually, his for now—there. He hadn’t looked at it so far, though, and wouldn’t unless he needed to in order to make their charade of choosing a ritual site make sense. The mere feel of it clinging, rough and black, to his skin made him want to vomit.

            “Do chop the grass faster, dear boy,” Snape said, and Harry restrained the urge to kick him in his finely-robed arse. He was sure Snape knew exactly how much Harry hated that friendly tone right now, and was exaggerating on purpose.

            Harry made a great show of cutting grass blades and holding them up to the faint light of the moon. “Hmm,” he said.

            “Hmm, what?” Snape-Dumbledore turned back around, and Harry thought someone who knew to look for it, like him, would see an incongruity in the way those twinkling eyes fastened on him. Dumbledore could look at people sharply like that, but he usually tried to pretend he hadn’t done it once someone caught him at it.

            “The grass has exactly the right measure of salt,” said Harry, which was totally made up, of course, and then spread his fingers wide so that the blades could fall back into the clearing. “If you’re sure that you mean to continue with this mad idea, Headmaster.” He wasn’t sure which was harder, remembering to keep his voice in the right drawl or remembering to address Snape by Dumbledore’s title. Because this version of Snape had no reason to rebel and run away, of course.

            Harry wondered for a moment if he wanted to know why Snape had some of Dumbledore’s hair on hand when they wanted to do this disguise, and then decided that he didn’t. If he was really curious, he could always ask later.

            “Of course I do, my boy.” Snape lowered his voice to a mysterious whisper that Harry could imagine making the Death Eater audience they hoped was there crane forwards and prick up their ears. “You know that this is our only chance.”

            “Potter may come around.” Harry straightened up and folded his arms sulkily in front of him, staring straight ahead. He didn’t want to look at Snape right now, since he knew he would get a nonverbal critique of his performance. “You don’t know everything, Albus.”

            “I know enough,” Snape said, and this time let his voice deepen to something close to its normal tones. Harry reckoned that was probably the way he would sound when trying to impress a reluctant follower. “And I know that, although you say this site is correct and secure, we should find more than one. If we intend to summon more than one Harry Potter, that is.”

            Harry let himself spin around as if he’d only just now found that out, and then stop and struggle with himself, the way he was sure Snape would after expressing any such emotion. “Albus,” he hissed at last. “We can barely control one of them. What makes you think that we could control a multitude?”

            “A multitude? No, Severus. Several.” Snape held up the wand that was enchanted to look like Dumbledore’s and smoothed his fingers down the shaft. Harry felt the Elder Wand vibrate a little in his robes, as though it was responding to the implied threat. “There is every difference between a multitude and several. For example…” And he leaned nearer and lowered his voice as if whispering into Harry’s ear.

            He did actually whisper into Harry’s ear, and what he said was, “Two Death Eaters under that tree with the three twisted branches. One of them is Macnair.”

            Harry didn’t whip his head around, but he had to admit that was partially because Snape was right there and he’d have had to bang his head into him to do it. It wasn’t because he was particularly smart about it. He just stiffened his back, and then managed to relax it and sighed. “How can you tell?” he whispered back, hoping the way he stood would show an arrogant attitude.

            “Because there is no way that Macnair can keep his footsteps quiet, and he is the only one that clumsy among the Dark Lord’s inner circle,” Snape mumbled back. Then he pulled his head away from Harry and sniffed the air. Harry reckoned he was being careful, in case someone used eavesdropping charms and realized they weren’t saying the things to each other that they were supposed to be saying. “What is that?” he demanded in Dumbledore’s strong voice, and turned towards the tree he’d said the Death Eaters were hiding behind.

            Harry promptly took a vial out of Snape’s black robes and heaved it in the tree’s direction. At least two Death Eaters meant they would try to capture one of them, but let the other escape to spread tales about “Dumbledore” and what he was up to.

            The potion exploded well short of the tree, but it didn’t matter, not with the red fumes that writhed out and into the forest. Harry could see the dark shapes now, holding still in hopes that the fumes wouldn’t reach them.

            They were out of luck, and broke cursing from the shade once they realized it. The other one ran back into the trees; Macnair headed towards them.

            Harry smiled and drew his wand. The Elder Wand sang in his hand under the enchantments that made it look like Snape’s wand, alight, eager with the impulse of destruction.

            Harry pointed it at the earth in front of the running Macnair’s feet—Snape was standing back and letting Harry protect him the way that Dumbledore would certainly trust in someone else’s skills—and didn’t speak, or even think the spell through nonverbally. The wand picked up on the impulses charging down his muscles, and that was enough.

            The ground exploded in front of Macnair, regular, strong bursts that made earth fly up into the air and checked his pounding run. Macnair started to duck and dodge and raise Shield Charms in front of himself. It was all too obvious that he didn’t understand what had happened, whether it was spells aimed at the ground or a curse aimed at him.

            Harry’s lips curled in a hungry smile. He didn’t know whether it was an expression that would have belonged on Snape’s face, and at the moment, he didn’t care. Their enemy was distracted anyway.

            His heart sang along with the Elder Wand. He aimed it at Macnair this time, and thought and whispered at the same moment a spell he’d read about yesterday in a book Snape had lent him. “Excito ventrem.”

            Macnair tried to dodge again, but this curse simply reached out for him, without causing any visible ray or flare of light. He missed his dodge, and ran right into it. Harry lowered his hand and licked his lips, aware of Snape staring at him, aware that he couldn’t wait to find out whether the curse would work as advertised.

            Macnair ground to a stop suddenly, and folded his arms above his abdomen. His moan of pain was low and pronounced. Harry bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something savage. The Elder Wand thrumming in his hand was probably the thing that was prompting him towards this. He closed his eyes and opened them again.

            Yes. The curse had worked.

            Macnair was writhing, his head tilted back, his feet rising so that he stood only on the tips of his toes. A large, invisible meat hook, as Harry knew from the description of the spell, would have caught him through the intestines and be hauling him up like that. As Harry watched, Macnair threw back his head and screamed.

            This man wasn’t the same one who had almost executed Buckbeak, but watching him, Harry felt as though he were.

            Snape’s hand snaked out and fell on his wrist. “Enough, Severus,” he said. “That spell can cause someone to die from the pain if used long enough, which is not our plan.”

            Harry found that he couldn’t look at him. He waved his wand and dismissed the spell. The Elder Wand did it willingly enough. It had been used for some purposes of destruction now, and it thrummed in satisfaction. Harry had to shake his hand to get rid of it; his fingers wanted to cling.

            Macnair fell to the ground. The other Death Eater had long since fled. Harry stepped forwards and lifted him in the air with Levicorpus, then spun and shook him. A few long-bladed knives dropped out of his robes, followed by a hook that resembled the invisible sensation the spell had conjured. Then came his wand, falling from his limp hand. Harry had to admit that he could have Summoned it or Disarmed Macnair, but this way was so much more—

            More. The words disappeared into the dark abyss that seemed to have opened up in the middle of him.

            He let Macnair flop back to the ground when he was done, and glanced at Snape. He wasn’t the leader here, after all. And by now, Snape looked calculating enough that Harry didn’t have any problem seeing the real person past Dumbledore’s long white beard and friendly eyes.

            “What do we do now, sir?” he asked.

*

            So. Harry could be Darker on occasion than he had thought, and not solely when facing the Dark Lord.

            Severus did not allow his thoughts to escape his mouth, either his thoughts on Harry or his thoughts on the wand. He merely nodded, and then said, “Bring him with us, as we planned. Pick him up.”

            Harry did it with Mobilicorpus, the mask he had assumed through Polyjuice as smooth and calm now as Severus had seen it in the mirror after a night of taking out his vengeance on student essays. The other look—the spasms of fearful excitement, the way his eyes had shone as he watched Macnair struggle and surge with pain—might never have existed.

            And it was not that Severus objected to them on moral grounds, he thought, as they prepared to Apparate back to the outside of Shaldon’s Garden. It was simply that such impulses, unchecked, could get in the way.

            The Dark Arts were useful. Sometimes necessary, in that there were spells the Ministry classified as Dark that would act as no other spells could. Preparations for potions as well as important in and of themselves. A subject that Severus had long deplored not being taught at Hogwarts. How could students properly learn Defense without learning what they were defending against?

            But it was not a complete lie, as some of the Ministry’s propaganda was, the caveat about the Dark Arts being addictive. Precisely because many other wizards feared them and would run away from a wizard who had mastered them rather than trying to achieve their effect through legal spells, they had their power. And becoming absorbed in them, trying to study more and more of them for their sake, was as debilitating to the man with a properly balanced mind as an obsession with revenge or with morality could be.

            Harry would not fall victim to that. Severus would kill him before that happened.

            But already the glee had faded from Harry’s eyes and he looked normal, or as normal as Severus was used to seeing himself look before a mirror. He decided that he would not show concern over it unless it turned out to be well-founded concern, which in this case seemed unlikely.

*

            “But what are you going to do with him?”

            Harry glanced up. The Polyjuice had worn off, and Snape had taken a strand of Macnair’s hair and gone into his lab to work with more. For the moment, Macnair was unconscious on a table in yet another folded section of wizardspace, a room Snape had said, briefly, that the first owner of the house had used as a dungeon.

            He hadn’t said what he himself used it for. Harry was getting better at spotting the little breaks in his speech like that, the little lies of omission, although he didn’t know what this one could be concealing. The room still looked like a dungeon, with bare stone walls and spots for chains on them, but the chains in this case were looped around Macnair’s ankles and wrists and pulled so tight to the sides of the table that Harry doubted he could move.

            Right now, he had to deal with Ginny, who had come to the door of the wizarspace and stood right on the threshold, the place where it changed from one space to another. Harry bit his lip on the impulse to say that he didn’t know what they were going to do, beyond Snape’s plan to make Macnair show up all over the place, and she shouldn’t care anyway, and motioned her inside.

            Ginny hesitated, then walked in. This close, Harry couldn’t see much difference from the girl he knew, but then, when had he ever known her well? Ginny looked at Macnair, and then walked around him and bent down to stare at the chains on his ankles.

            “Don’t worry,” Harry said. “He’s secure. I checked.”

            Ginny started up and said, “I wasn’t worrying. I just wondered.” She chewed the inside of her cheek for a second, looking at him, and then said, “Percy thinks you’re going to contact Dumbledore again.”

            “Did he tell you that?” Harry thought it would be pretty stupid of Percy to talk to the rest of his family about it when he had to know that Mrs. Weasley and the twins wanted to help Harry, but then, after his conversation with him last evening, he thought Percy might be a little too eager to be discreet.

            “I picked up on the hints. He went and talked to you frowning, and he came down the stairs again smiling.” Ginny folded her arms and stared at him. “Are you going to let him get away with that?”

            “Hinting? I can’t prevent what he thinks.” Harry didn’t know which side Ginny was on, so he thought he had to play cool for now. Not to mention that, if he did tell the truth, then Ginny might not want to keep it a secret from her brother.

            “Going back to Dumbledore.” Ginny narrowed her eyes. “I think—I think it would be horrible of you to do that, when we’re taking risks for you.”

            “I can’t promise anything,” Harry said, deciding that it was better to be blunt than having her tear off to Mrs. Weasley. “But I can promise that I don’t abandon my allies. Except when someone pulls me to another universe and forces me to,” he added, belatedly, because otherwise it was the sort of exception that Percy would point out.

            Ginny started to answer, but the air in front of Harry rippled and darkened. He spun around, his hand already on his wand, his mouth open to call Snape from the lab. Something strong enough to reach through the wards of Shaldon’s Garden might kill him without effort, but Harry still didn’t intend to go down without a fight.

            Then he recognized the stars that gleamed in the depths of the tunnel. His hand fell from his wand, and he laughed.

            “What is that?” Ginny’s voice was a little shrill. When Harry looked at her, though, she’d drawn her own wand, and it seemed that she didn’t intend to run.

            “The tunnel from another world,” Harry said, and cleared his throat, hoping his voice wouldn’t shake in front of Ginny when he spoke. That would be all he needed, sounding like a scared little boy. “Hermione? Is that you?”

            “Harry?” His Hermione’s voice was rich and deep and warm, and maybe Harry was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it. “Oh, finally. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, reaching across all the universes to find the one that you’re in. It’s a long distance, and something like a barrier of glass kept getting in the way.”

            Harry froze when he heard that, but he didn’t think it was the right time to worry her by talking about it, so he just nodded and said, “God, Hermione, I’m glad that you’re here now. Have you had time to find out whether I can come back to you lot at all, or was this the one-way trip Dumbledore claims it was?”

            “There’s a way you can come home,” Hermione said. Harry closed his eyes for a second, and hoped Ginny wasn’t watching his face too closely. “But it’s difficult and dangerous. We can help you from this side, but do you have someone there that you would trust to help you?”

            Harry opened his eyes and turned his head. Snape had come to the door of his lab, perhaps because he had felt the magic of the tunnel opening between the worlds, and he cocked his head slightly. His eyes were fastened on Harry’s.

            “Yeah,” Harry said, and faced the tunnel again. “I do. What do we have to do, Hermione?”

            “You need to find a place that feels safe to you,” Hermione said instantly, “and we need to go to the same place in our world. Or we’ll find one and you try to reach it. It doesn’t matter who chooses it, which is very interesting, actually. I assumed that you would to pick the place that you wanted to travel to, but—”

            “He doesn’t care about that part of it, Hermione,” Ron’s voice said irritably. “Anyway. The place. Good to talk to you, mate. After you find this place and we’re in it, then you have to channel a whole lot of magic into an object that you’re carrying with you, something you brought from our universe to that one, and that you’ll be happy to leave behind. It substitutes for you, somehow—it stays there, and it convinces the magic of the first spell that Order used that you’re staying. Do you have something like that?”

            Harry nodded, thinking first of the clothes he’d worn on his involuntary journey, and then some of the small things stuffed in the pockets. He’d willingly give up anything that had come with him from his world, except the Elder Wand. He hated to think of what someone would do with that if they found it here, and super-charged with magic. “All right. Then what do we do?”

            “That’s the part where we come in,” Hermione said, and there was a sharp rustle. Harry grinned, deciding that she must have taken the parchment with her notes on it back from Ron. “We start the ritual that’s going to open the way between the universes, and hold it open for several minutes, long enough for you to come through. You’ll have to run. I don’t think the bridge we’ll create is particularly safe.”

            “Ask Miss Granger why you need the help of someone else,” Snape murmured, barely moving his lips.

            “Why do I need someone’s help from here?” Harry asked aloud. “It sounds like we can do it on our own, as long as we know where we are in the ritual.”

            “Someone else has to anchor the opposite end of the bridge,” Hermione said. “That’s the only way it can stay long enough. Otherwise, it’ll crumble behind you as you run, and the crumbling will catch up with you long before you can make it.”

            “Even if I fly?”

            “You can’t fly,” Hermione said tensely. “Riding on a broom uses magic, and you can’t use magic on that bridge. It’s pure power, very delicately balanced. Adding any more power to the balance would upset it. Harry, you have to promise me that you won’t cast a spell while you’re running on the bridge, no matter what you see—”

            “I promise, Hermione,” Harry said soothingly, and looked at Snape. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but whatever it was, he found it in Snape’s mild nod. “I think we can do that. Do you have to go?” he added, seeing the way that the mouth of the tunnel expanded and rippled back and forth now.

            “Yes,” Hermione whispered. “I’m sorry, Harry. But now that we’ve reached you once, I think we can do it again, barrier or no barrier.”

            Snape straightened, frowning, but Harry ignored him for the moment. “Thank you, Hermione, Ron. Contact me again when you can. And I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

            “We’re waiting for you, mate,” Ron’s voice said gruffly, and then the tunnel collapsed in on itself and became a whirling black speck that danced into the corner of the room and was gone.

            Harry turned to face Snape. He wouldn’t have chosen to have this conversation in front of Ginny, but at least she hadn’t interrupted, and she didn’t look like she would do it soon, either, as open-mouthed as she was. “What do you think? Can we do this?”

*

            I think that if I secure the other side of the bridge, that means that you can pass freely, and I will be left here alone to face Albus and anyone else of the Order who is still alive and can bring their wrath against me.

            But Severus did not say that, because it was not fair. Harry had not asked to be brought here. He would not be leaving Severus behind on purpose, either. And if Severus needed repayment for helping Harry, then seeing Albus confounded and the Dark Lord defeated would be repayment enough.

            For now, he nodded and passed on to the bit of information that concerned him more. “Miss Granger said that there was a barrier when she tried to reach across the void between universes? How did she describe it?”

            “Glass,” Harry said, and then frowned, head tilting, as if it only now had occurred to him that he might have questioned his friend more closely. “I reckon that means that she could sense us through it, maybe even see how to open the tunnel, but she couldn’t break it.”

            Severus smiled. “And so now it only remains to find out whether it was Albus or the Dark Lord causing it,” he said.

            Harry’s eyes flashed, and he nodded. “It’s going to be bad news for either of them, no matter which one it was,” he said casually, and his hand fell to his wand.

            Severus reminded himself that he wanted to get a look at that wand, but later, and turned to face the young Weasley who was watching them. “Miss Weasley,” he said. “Do you have somewhere else to be?”

            She jumped and then nodded a minute later. “I think I do,” she said. “And I have things to say to a certain brother of mine. That was real enough for me.” She looked at the place in the air where the hole between universes had been, then nodded to both of them and swept out of the room, her head lifted to the point that Severus thought she would have trouble seeing past her nose.

            “Percy?” Severus asked.

            Harry grinned. “I think so. That’s another ally we have convinced, then.” He glanced at Severus. “And now we just have to keep the deception going with Dumbledore apparently visiting ritual sites, and defeat him, and use Macnair’s hair, and make sure that the rest of the Weasleys stay on our side.”

            “And prepare for the moment when you will be transported back to your own world,” Severus said quietly. “You do realize that we are on a time limit, now? Either Albus or the Dark Lord would have felt his barrier break, and they will realize that that means you are now in communication with your allies. I do not think either would want you to escape him, though I will give Albus the credit of noting that their reasons would be different.”

            Harry’s teeth snapped once. “I realize that,” he said. “And we’ll do it.”

            The confidence shining in his eyes, in his face, made Severus smile in spite of himself, and forget a few of the bitter thoughts. I wonder if his world realizes that they will have a leader to reckon with, when he returns?

*

            Zip: No problem! I always understand you. And writing a gen story is, sometimes, a nice change of pace.

            unneeded: It depends on what they’ll be doing. For the moment, Snape has a lot of potions ingredients still in his house and garden, and the Weasley twins have their own experiments. They probably won’t need to finance much if Harry can kill Voldemort quickly—as he’ll now have to.

            Ron dreaded his parents knowing about it so much that he was willing to go into debt to someone else.
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World in Pieces