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Proof of Life	By : emilywaters Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 65668 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harry Potter related. It all belongs to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Inc., Warner Bros., and any other entities involved. I make no money from writing fanfiction.

Chapter List
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Entrapment, part 1

Severus refused to discuss his idea until everyone he had in mind was gathered at Harry's place. "I have no intention of explaining everything twice," Severus said, before stalking off and departing to his study.

It was late morning when Ron, Hermione, Marietta, Luna, Ginny and Neville arrived at Harry's place.

Severus nodded to them to sit down and they did, bringing chairs from the kitchen to form a small circle.

Ron spoke first to give an update on the investigation. A sample of Ginny's blood was missing from St. Mungo's, with no record of who had signed it out. The wand that had been used to charm the Snitch was found as well, and it was unknown who it belonged to. Marietta asked to see the wand and Ron departed, returning with it a few minutes later. Harry stared at the wand as well: short and slender, it seemed vaguely familiar.

"It's one of those, isn't it?" Harry asked softly, remembering the box of discarded and abandoned wands that Marietta had brought from St. Mungo's months ago for Severus to try.

"Yes," Marietta said. Ron gave her a quizzical look and she elaborated, "St. Mungo's Lost and Found has a number of abandoned wands that have never been claimed. This is one of them."

"All roads lead back to St. Mungo's," Ron muttered. "Kind of creepy. Are you sure about this?"

"All right, never mind the mystery wand now," Severus said abruptly, irritably. "What we need to do right now is make a plan of action. So far we've been reacting and defending ourselves from whatever is thrown our way. It's time that changed. We need to go on the offensive." He turned to Ron. "If I'm not mistaken, you're having some trouble tracking the Underground. Can you tell me how a typical raid on one of their compounds is carried out?"

Ron nodded.

"Well, sir, whenever we get a lead on one of the compounds, we act as soon as we're able. First we take down the wards, secure the compound, make arrests. By the time we've delivered the prisoners to a secure holding area, got a Legilimens to work with them – hours go by. Now, in the course of interrogations, we typically get leads on locations of other compounds – but those leads are no good to us at that point – the other Death Eaters already know something went wrong, and relocate." Ron sighed. "You know, my guess is that it's their wards that are the problem. I bet you anything, there's a fail-safe mechanism built into each compound's wards, and it alerts the others whenever one of their locations comes under attack. I'm guessing that as soon as they know that one of their compounds has been compromised, the others don't take any chances – they just pack up shop and relocate."

A small shadow crossed Severus' face. "I believe you're correct, Mr. Weasley. During my captivity, I recall being relocated a number of times. Back then, I didn't know the reason for it, but your explanation makes perfect sense." Severus paused slightly, appearing to be thinking some things over before speaking again. "What if we changed the playing field? What if we had a group of the Death Eaters, the best fighters they've got, gathered in a single location, away from any of their compounds? And what if, instead of taking them to a Ministry holding area, and thus losing valuable time, we dealt with it ourselves? Given sufficient manpower, we could incapacitate them, use Legilimency scans to determine the locations of all the remaining compounds, and attack at once, without any delay, without giving the rest of the Underground a chance to regroup, run and hide?"

Ron frowned, taking a long minute to consider the question.

"Well, we'll have to use invasive Legilimency scans to get the information out of them – it won't be easy. There aren't that many of us who can do that – I mean, really, there's Harry and me and you and a few others... but yes, it can be done." Ron shook his head and gave a rueful smile. "It's not exactly legal, you realize. Vigilante justice is frowned upon, even when it's for a good cause."

"Yes," Severus mused. "Though I suspect that ending the Underground threat once and for all will make apologizing a great deal easier."

Ron grinned from ear to ear. "True," he conceded. "I actually think we've got the manpower do pull this off. There's my unit - that's thirty people, there's the Light Brigade, and some members of the Order who'd be willing to fight..."

"And there are people Viktor knows from Durmstrang," Ginny cut in quickly. "Charlie has some friends in Romania. We can get more help if needed."

"Good, that's good," Ron said approvingly. "Now, the real question is... how do we get a bunch of Death Eaters away from their compounds into a single location where we can close in on them?"

Severus smirked. "We need a bait, don't we?"

Harry, who was listening to the conversation with a growing sense of unease, felt his stomach drop at those words.

"No way," he protested at once. "We aren't using you as bait."

"Have you got a better idea?" Severus challenged him.

"Maybe not right this second, but this is... not right. It's way too risky."

"Actually," Severus said softly, "the risk would be minimal. I will return to my house at Spinner's End. You will set up the wards around my house to hold off the initial assault and inform other members of the Light Brigade as soon as someone attempts to take the wards down. And should something go wrong, I can always use the Floo to return here."

Harry shook his head. "No, I don't like this at all. There are too many variables. What if we can't respond in time? What if the Death Eaters manage to take down your wards before we can get to Spinner's End?"

Hermione nodded in agreement. "You know, that's true. There's no need for something that reckless. We're all safe for the moment..."

"Really?" Severus snapped. "What makes you think that the Underground won't target your daughter next, or try to snatch up your parents from their Muggle home? Make no mistake, if we sit around and do nothing, the Underground will find a way to get me back and kill me. And once I am dead, and they can use the Dark Mark network to communicate with each other without threat of detection, they'll become unstoppable. You'll have another war on your hands, and I'm not at all certain you'll be able to win it easily."

"Okay, you make a good point," Neville cut in, "We need to do something, and do it soon, but I don't like this plan either. You've said it yourself – you're the only one standing between the wizarding world and the Underground's reign of terror. If that's the case, it'd be rather daft to risk losing you."

"He's right," Marietta said quickly.

"Besides," Harry added, "We've already underestimated the Underground once. They may have more people than we realize. We don't even know how many of their compounds are still out there. Fighting a war on too many fronts at once will stretch us thin..."

"And it's completely crazy to do something like that without the entire Auror office backing us up," Ginny said. "Even with all the resources we've got, it's still too risky."

"No, Professor Snape is right," Ron spoke suddenly, causing all heads to turn to him.

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, scandalized.

"Ron, I can't believe you'd be agreeing to this!" Harry snapped, irritated beyond all measure by Ron's apparent willingness to take chances with Severus' life.

"Look, we all know that a confrontation is coming, one way or another," Ron said. "Now, doing it this way, we choose the location and we choose the time. And if you ask me, it's a hell of a lot better than just waiting for something to happen. This way, we're in control, we're doing everything on our own terms. We'll have the benefit of surprise – we'll hit the Underground fast and hard, they won't have the time to regroup and run. I really think we can pull this off."

Harry shook his head and was about to argue again when Severus found his gaze and held it.

"Harry," Severus said, speaking quietly. "It's a good plan. More to the point, it's the only one we've got. We can do it, I know we can. I'm not willing to have this ongoing threat hang over our heads for the next decade. The time to act is now. Let's make one final effort, fight one final battle and end this now, once and for all."

Harry sighed. He could see Severus' point – in the light of the recent attack on Ginny, the Underground would likely believe that Harry might choose to distance himself and his family from Severus as much as possible. The longer they waited, the less believable the "bait" would be. The plan was risky – but waiting was a risk as well, and a kind that was less likely to pay off.

Severus looked at Harry.

Giving that single nod of agreement seemed like the hardest thing Harry had had to do in his entire life, but he bowed his head, accepting the plan.

"All right," Harry said, pushing his unease aside for the moment. "Ginny, contact Charlie and Viktor. Get them and their friends to come in immediately. Marietta, the battle might get ugly. You need to select and train a number of the Light Brigade members in first aid procedures. Ron, we should go to Spinner's End right away and set up those wards, and make sure they're so tight that not as much as a fly gets in."

Ron stood up and Harry did as well, still not quite believing what they'd just gotten themselves into.

"Professor," Ron spoke, "just in case something does go wrong and you're recaptured... There's a new tracking spell we've developed. Only a handful of us in the Auror Office know about it. It's extremely powerful, but virtually undetectable – it'll likely go unnoticed by anyone, unless they know exactly what to look for. Would it be okay to use it on you, just in case?"

Severus nodded in agreement and Ron cast the tracking charm. Harry's heart clenched at the realization that they were preparing for the possibility of Severus' recapture. Severus himself seemed untroubled by any of it.

"Mister Weasley," Severus spoke again just before Ron left, "would you mind if I kept that unclaimed wand?"

Ron paused in his steps and frowned, seemingly uncertain about relinquishing what was a piece of evidence in a still active investigation. Severus simply waited. Eventually Ron shrugged silently and handed the wand over. Severus received it and examined it, as if to determine how well it worked for him.

"Yes," Severus murmured to no-one in particular. "Yes, that's good."

o-o-o

It took a full day for everything to be put into place. Krum and his people, about thirty of them, arrived and camped out around the Burrow, ready for action. Hermione made frantic firecalls, arranging for meetings with former members of the Order, bringing them up to speed on the situation and asking for their support.

In the afternoon Harry and Ron approached Severus with a new idea: Polyjuice a trained Auror from Ron's team to look like Severus and go to Spinner's End instead of him. Severus dismissed the idea instantly and a long argument ensued. How Severus actually won that argument, Harry wasn't entirely certain, but Severus seemed hell-bent on being "the bait" and wouldn't budge on his decision. It seemed an obsession of sorts, for him, to take that risk personally, and there was no way of talking him out of it.

Ron and Harry were discreet while exploring Spinner's End, just in case the Underground were already watching Snape's old house, too. The neighbourhood seemed to be in even worse shape than Harry'd remembered: the few houses next to Severus' appeared abandoned, with "for sale" signs mounted nearby. Harry supposed it was lucky that the action they'd planned wouldn't be noticed by the Muggle population. On the other hand, it meant that Severus would be completely isolated in his home, with the Floo his only connection to the rest of the Light Brigade.

It took Harry and Ron several hours to set up wards that Harry felt confident about. Still, he had a lingering suspicion of missing something – some piece of the puzzle, some important detail that somehow was remaining overlooked.

Ron gave him an encouraging smile, but for some reason, it made Harry only feel worse.

He returned home, miserable and drained, to see Severus packing.

For a while Harry simply sat and watched, gripped with the irrational fear that, should he look away, Severus might disappear somehow.

Severus was going through his books and notebooks, deliberately and unhurriedly, as if he were preparing for a Potions conference. Harry sighed deeply. He could see how much difficulty Severus was having just to move: yesterday's injuries were still not fully healed.

Each time a set of notes or a pad of paper made it into Severus' shoulder bag, Harry's heart clenched with a dreadful sense of loss, as if the very life they had built together in the last eight months was slipping through his fingers, and he had no idea how to hold on to it.

"Stop it," Severus said sharply, without looking at him.

"What? I'm not doing anything."

"You are sighing. You just did it again. It's getting on my nerves."

"I wouldn't be sighing if you had any common sense at all, and..." Harry started saying, but the budding argument was interrupted mid sentence by the Floo coming alive, and Ginny emerging, with Lily holding her hand.

Lily walked to Harry first and he hugged her, pressing his lips to the top of her head. She stood still in his embrace, clearly knowing something was up, the adults' anxiety affecting her as well. Lily went to Severus next and tugged on his sleeve.

"I saw you fly out to save mum," she said quietly.

Severus turned around and stared at her, seeming uncertain how to respond.

"I overheard them talking. Are you going away?" Lily demanded.

"Only for a few days."

"You aren't going to be lost again, are you?"

"Absolutely not," Severus said firmly. "I'll never be lost again."

"Why do you need to go away?" Lily continued to quiz him.

"We need to do something very important," Severus said, lowering himself to be on the same eye level with Lily. "We'll be very busy for a couple of days." He cleared his throat and gave her a small smile. "I'm going to need your help."

"Okay," Lily agreed at once.

Severus walked over to the couch and picked up Tripod, who let out a small disgruntled mewl but didn't resist the unceremonious treatment.

"As I've mentioned, we'll be quite busy. We won't have any time to take care of the cat. Can you feed him and water him for me while I'm gone?"

Lily nodded readily and Severus deposited the cat in her arms. She received the animal solemnly. Tripod didn't seem to mind, just twisted himself in her grip and rested his paws on her shoulders.

"All right, go home with your mother now," Severus said awkwardly, patting Lily's shoulder. "I'll see you soon."

Ginny took Lily's hand but gave Severus and Harry one last worried look.

"Maybe we should reconsider," she offered hesitantly. "There's got to be a more sane way of doing the same thing." Severus shook his head and Ginny sighed tiredly, taking Lily's hand. "All right, well, let's hope for the best. Harry, we'll be ready when you need us."

After Ginny departed, taking Lily with her, Severus stood up and picked up his bag.

"I should be going as well," he said.

"Not yet," Harry whispered, approaching him and putting his hands on Severus' shoulders. "Stay with me one more night. Leave in the morning."

"You won't be any happier about this in the morning," Severus pointed out. "No, it's time."

"Fine. I'll come along. Take another look at your place," Harry said.

For a moment he fully expected another argument, but Severus simply took Harry's hand in his.

"All right," Severus said. "Let's get to it. The sooner we start, the sooner it'll be over."

To Be Continued...
- 51
- 52
- 53
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Proof of Life