Chapter Forty-Six

They felt like the longest ten days of my life, a kind of fretful limbo over which I had no control. I wrote to Riddle, twice, the first time asking him to get in touch with me as I was concerned about losing the thread of my research, urging him to understand that my notes were all unchecked, and that without the book I had no reference for completing my work. In the second missive I expressed my concern for Harry's welfare, and asked him why had not replied to my first letter. Aside from an ominous silence, there was nothing, not even an indication that he had received my owls; yet perhaps more tellingly, neither I, nor Black, nor Potter was summoned by the dormant Dark Marks we bore. Even the book, the real book, was silent in its own way, so much so that I almost fancied I had the copy and Riddle had the real thing. In those awful ten days I suspect only two things kept me from going mad with suppressed terror, one of course was Ethel, and the other was the white stone. Whenever I felt I had reached my wits' end, that my frustration would rip from me in a screaming rage, it seemed to sense my feelings of impotence and throb in a way that quieted my jangling senses.

Henry Potter and Arthur sent separate messages to the Ministry that they were unwell, and from there there was silence too. A lull before a storm was too mean a description for those days, they were more like an almost eerie panicked quiet, the sort one actually associates with the aftermath of an apocalyptic event, like a volcano, or a tidal wave.

I went to Godric's Hollow, uneasy, and could take no comfort from the fact that the Fidelius Charm seemed to be intact, and that James and Lily and the child appeared to be safe. We were all just waiting, like little mice who had crawled from safety to face a lion that hadn't turned up.

I couldn't seem to settle anywhere, and I know now that it was because I had left myself with nothing to do, and everyone else seemed to have a sense of purpose. The women were busy tending the old and the young, and the sick and the vulnerable in the picture; and Ethel and Henry and Arthur seemed almost serene in their waiting and watching over those we had hidden. Black and Lupin were busy with the Order members as they cranked up the silent defences of Hogwarts, and Dumbledore was occupied sealing her secrets to Filtch and Minerva and Flitwick. And I had nothing to do.

****

Nothing happened on the day Schultz had warned us about, and it wasn't until early the next evening that I went up to the ramparts of the castle as though drawn there, something that gave me an odd feeling of satisfaction that I hadn't really seen fit to doubt Morton Schultz. The sky was overcast, dull thunder growling in the distance, and that sort of greenish tint that was the prelude to a storm. A fitting backdrop, I thought.

The battlements of the castle bristled with the soldiers of the Order of the Phoenix and those men and women who had come to be part of the fight for the very survival of our people. I wondered if Riddle had given any thought to where I was, or if even then he still had any faith in me. I watched as Black and James Potter briefed the front line defences, Molly Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Lupin and Moody amongst them. Molly had left her children in the safety of the picture, and I knew she felt her presence at Hogwarts was some sort of fitting tribute to her brothers. I had urged James to do the same with Lily and the baby, but he was content that they were safe where they were at Godric's Hollow, and aside from that it really was too late to begin moving people around. Arthur was still at Spinner's End with Henry Potter and the ladies, as a kind of first line of defence for the picture; against what, we didn't really know, but Ethel had sealed the charm protecting the house to Weasley and Potter, yet permitting any of our own closest circle unhindered access.

Sirius and James were reiterating their orders yet again, that the defence of the castle had not to begin until I gave the order, that whenever they eventually appeared, as we knew they would, as many Death Eaters as possible had to be drawn to the walls in the belief that their prize was within their grasp... and then it began.

Even expecting, and almost longing for it to happen, it was a shock when a bolt of green was shot into the sky, arcing slowly upward like the malignant comet it was until the Dark Mark hovered above us. I heard the elves shriek from below in a terrified lament, as Archie Kettleburn's wolfhounds bayed in fury. I let them draw nearer; knowing that even then there was a possibility that I was sacrificing our own men and women, I let them draw nearer, but I had to see Bellatrix and Macnair and the Lestrange brothers, and I had to see if Tom Riddle and Cygnus Black and the rest of his inner circle were there, or if Riddle had once more, albeit unwittingly, sent others to do his dying for him. There was no point to any of this if all we did was kill those who made up his numbers.

I dared a look over the ramparts, invisible to everyone but Black and Potter, and just as I was about to turn away, the assembled ranks of Riddle's followers parted to let him and his closest confidants through. I saw Riddle laugh as a man came up to him and seemed to ask for his attention, and I heard James Potter's gasp of shock just as sickening realisation dawned on me too. The man was Peter Pettigrew, our traitor, James and Lily's Secret Keeper, and the man Ethel had warned me that she did not know, the warning I had paid no heed.

I turned in time to see Black talking urgently to Potter before turning to me.

'Go,' I said quickly to Potter. 'Take Lily to Spinner's End. Have Ethel conceal her along with Molly's children and Draco.' I swallowed the surge of fury at myself that I had not insisted he had done so earlier.

'What about our plans?' Potter asked, desperation in his voice.

'Kingsley and Lupin can take your place,' Black replied, looking anxiously over the parapets again at the Death Eaters who assumed the castle to be going about the business of the evening meal. 'Everyone is briefed to move up a place if anyone falls.'

Potter nodded uneasily as the crowds of Death Eaters below drew apart with an almost audible sigh, and Tom Riddle walked back through their ranks.

'Go now, Potter,' I urged. 'I would not have the blood of any more friends on my hands.'

He had just turned when the Dark Mark shot into the sky again, and Riddle's greatly magnified voice called from below. 'Wakey, wakey, rise and shine.'

I nodded to Black, and the first line of the Order rained their curses on the stunned Death Eaters below, whilst the ones at the rear of our lines raised the battle standards of our faithful to flap above Hogwarts in arrogant disdain: Minerva's wild-cat banner, Lupin's personal wolf banner, the crossed swords of the Shacklebolt family, the rearing stag of the Potters, the battle standard of the Ancient and most Noble House of Black, and the silver serpent of the House of Malfoy all flanked Dumbledore's Hogwarts banner, as I fancied they had done in days of antiquity.

The serpent seemed to break away from the Dark Mark suspended in the sky, snaking down like a bolt of green lightning towards our standards, and I felt a scald of disappointment and fear as our flags seemed to part with a sigh like the ranks of the Death Eaters had done. They had not given way to the Dark Mark though, but instead to a gold banner with a red griffin shimmering on it as though it were in living flames, and as the serpent's forked tongue shot from its gaping maw the griffin clawed the air and seemed to bellow derision at the Dark Mark above us, and I thought at that moment our battle lines were truly drawn.

The first few moments were bedlam, curses raining upwards to bounce off the uncaring castle's walls until someone below assembled Riddle's foot soldiers into some sort of order. We took casualties in that first onslaught, men and women who had come from the safety of their hiding places to die for us, but we had the twin supremacy of height and counter-surprise, and it wasn't until almost dawn that the beleaguered Death Eaters began to draw back in what looked to be a vain attempt to regroup.

I'd made my way down to ground level to see if I was able to identify any of Riddle's close circle amongst the dead and wounded, who were even then being tended by our own mediwitches. There was that weird post-battle silence, as though everyone able to do so was checking to see they were still alive. I was sickened by guilt and the remorse that most of those dying would be ordinary witches and wizards just not strong enough to have withstood him, the ones we had let down. There would be many families waiting for a loved one who would never come home.

I dropped the Invisibility Charm as I turned away, intending to go straight to where Dumbledore was maintaining the Perpetuum Tueri of Hogwarts with Flitwick, Minerva, and Filtch, but as I ducked in the side door from the pathway an incandescent light caught my eyes from above, and I recognised the white glow of a Patronus skidding to a stop around where I had left Black and Lupin. I flew up the outside of the castle walls, not even taking the time to Disillusion myself, hardly caring if anyone saw me; I had no time to waste, and all that was left of the Death Eaters by then were the weary stragglers. I'd quite forgotten that it was to most of our own people that I would appear as the enemy.

The stag turned as I reached the ramparts, and even as it did I heard Black moan and Lupin gasp in some sort of denial as the white glow seemed to flicker and falter. I raced for the stairs to get to the tunnel that would lead me the quickest way out of Hogwarts to the Apparition point, barely registering that Black was at my side, knowing in my heart that we were probably too late, and knowing the question I needed to ask would remain unanswered, that I had would have to see how events unfolded to tell if Peter Pettigrew knew of my ultimate allegiance.

*****

Black had gone round the back of the house at Godric's Hollow to see if he could gain entry by stealth, leaving me to show myself. Riddle was standing in the hallway of James and Lily's home with a blanket wrapped bundle in the crook of one arm, and I almost fancied he had been waiting for me, and that made me worry that either James had confided in Pettigrew or the charm that prevented Pettigrew from identifying me as the caster of the Fidelius Charm had failed. Neither seemed to be the case though.

'Severus,' he said, 'why are you here?'

'Bellatrix told me to come to you, Tom.' The lies didn't matter anymore, and if it came to pass that Riddle survived this meeting, nothing else would matter either. 'I have been trying to get in touch with you,' I stammered. 'I didn't know what had become of the boy... what had become of you...' Such was the malevolent power of his presence that it was only then that I noticed the two prone figures lying behind him.

Black had come into the hallway from the back of the house, and from the look on his face as he knelt to where James and Lily lay on the floor behind Riddle I knew that no blood coursed through their veins, no fluttering pulse held out a promise; they were both dead.

'No,' I gasped in shock and outrage, but I had to cling to the stone to remind me of the price of failing to convince Riddle to give the baby to me. 'Not the child, Tom?' I asked, grabbing his free arm, in truth to give Black the time to conceal himself again. I was then I noticed Riddle looked unwell, as though sickening for something, and I couldn't imagine what that could be. 'Tell me you haven't destroyed the child,' I asked.

He gave me an odd look as he shook himself free, and glanced carelessly over his shoulder to where James and Lily lay, and I do not know to this day whether he ever knew Sirius Black had been behind him; most likely he just didn't care. 'Of course not,' he said, and there was something almost puzzled in his reply, as though he wasn't thinking clearly. 'I have made him ... shall we say, invincible.'

It was only then that I saw his palm was scorched, as though his wand had burnt it in some way, and then I saw the small bundle in his arm move, and I let go of a sigh, quite forgetting about anything except the child.

'Thank Merlin,' I gasped, holding out my arms for the baby. 'He is the one, Tom. He truly is the one.'

'I know... just as I knew you were faithful to me alone, my love,' he said as the white stone throbbed an unneeded warning in my pocket. 'You are faithful to me, my Severus, are you not? Only, I would fear for you if that did not prove to be the case.'

'Have I ever given you cause for doubt?' I asked.

He raised his eyebrow once in reply, pulled his cloak across himself and the baby and disappeared, but not before I saw something almost like agony cross his features, something that made me wonder again if he were wounded in some way.

*****