By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy;
By the perfection of thine art
Which pass’d for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others’ pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee! And compel
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!
Harry awoke to find himself tied to a chair, his wand missing. As he scanned the room, he noticed that he was in a cellar, and that Snape was tied up nearby. Harry twisted and pulled on the rope, but the more he struggled the tighter the rope became; it had an eerie green glow to it, and he suspected it was magical. Ursula was nowhere in sight, and he glared at Snape, who was still unconscious. Undoubtedly the two of them had been working together, and it was all an elaborate ruse.
Just as he spat on the ground at Snape’s feet in disgust, the professor’s eyes opened. “Potter! Where did she go?” he asked, his eyes blazing with fury and fear.
Harry frowned at him. “How the hell should I know? You can drop the act, I know you two planned this together!” he snarled.
Snape shook his head. “No, I had nothing to do with this!” he protested.
“Liar.”
“Potter, listen to me. I am not lying,” Snape insisted, as they heard footsteps coming towards the stairs.
“I don’t believe you. You killed him, he trusted you and you betrayed him. I hate you, I hope you die!” Harry shouted as the footsteps neared.
“Well, Potter, you might get your wish,” Ursula’s voice sneered, as she came down the stairs. “Unfortunately, you’ll be killed as well, so you may not be around to witness it.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Snape suddenly yelled. “Are you insane? What do you hope to accomplish by this?”
“My dear Severus, I plan to accomplish quite a bit. The Dark Lord has offered me a considerable reward for your corpse. Apparently he wasn’t too happy about you stepping between Malfoy and Dumbledore. As for you, Potter, he will deal with you personally.” She smirked at them, her blue eyes cold and hard.
“What are you going to do to us?” Snape asked, and Ursula narrowed her eyes at him.
“Damn you and your Unbreakable Vow! If I had known what it would cost me, I would have never agreed to it!” she growled. “The Dark Lord will soon arrive to destroy you, and there is no way you can escape!”
“So you’ve been on his side all along?” Harry gasped incredulously. “You’re a Death Eater?”
“No, Potter, why would I spend my time following around the Dark Lord like a pathetic servant? I’m not Bellatrix or Lucius, I serve no one! You might say I’m more of a bounty hunter for Voldemort, someone he can count on when his snivelling servants fail. I merely had something that he wanted, information, and the means of luring you away. Why do you think I sent you to Black’s house? I knew you’d try to get some background information on me, which was just what I wanted, because when you found out you I was a relative you were more likely to trust me. You’re too nosy for your own good, Potter.”
“But“ you helped me! You could have turned me over to Voldemort anytime you wanted!”
“Yes, but you see, Potter, to catch the big fish, you need bait.” When Harry looked at her, puzzled, she laughed. “Don’t tell me Severus has never informed you of the third Unbreakable Vow to which he is bound?”
Harry glanced at Snape in confusion. “Severus has bound his life to three different people, Potter. The first was me, of course. The second, young Malfoy, who as I understand is eventually destined to become a sacrificial lamb. The third person who Severus has sworn to protect is, surprisingly, you.”
Harry stared at her, horrified. “You’re lying, he hates me, he never would have consented to““
”No, Potter, she is telling the truth,” Snape said suddenly. “I took the vow in secret, the day before you defeated the Dark Lord. Your mother discovered that I had been the one to overhear the prophecy, that I was a spy. I was the one who warned her of his plan. Lily was furious, but then she asked me to take the Unbreakable Vow as a punishment for what I had done. I was to protect you for the remainder of my life, or face death.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Harry’s head was spinning; the thought that Snape had been protecting him for nearly his whole life was a shocking revelation. “But“ if my mum asked you to protect me, why did you treat me so badly? And where were you before I started school at Hogwarts? You can’t have been following me around, I’d have noticed!”
“I did not realise, when I agreed to the vow, just how difficult it would be to protect you. I was resentful at having to play babysitter, angry that my life depended on the life of a young man with the consistent habit of nearly getting himself killed. I hated you for being such a burden on me, I hated being responsible for another person’s life when I was already risking my own. As for your childhood, I was there quite often, although you were never aware of it. My trust was placed in your aunt and uncle, but where their protection fell short, that was where I came in. I was not alone, of course; Dumbledore had many people guarding you. I suppose he did not feel entirely confident in my abilities, and of course I was teaching and could not be in two places at once.”
Harry tried desperately to make sense of this new information. “All I can remember is the time you stopped Quirrell from knocking me off my broom, but I thought that was just because you owed my dad a favour. Besides that, when have you ever bothered to help me?”
Snape sighed in exasperation. “Do you remember when you were six years old, and your aunt and uncle left you behind in a grocery store? I sent the taxi driver who gave you a ride home. When you were eight, a group of teenagers tried to attack you. I was there, making the dustbins shoot garbage at them while you ran away. Every stroke of good fortune you’ve had has been the result of someone keeping an eye on you. You are not exceptionally lucky, nor do you have powers that other wizards do not. You simply have a group of very good friends determined to keep you from harm.”
Ursula rolled her eyes as Harry stared at Snape. “How touching. I knew you would be too foolish to resist coming here, Severus. Did you think you’d actually stand a chance, coming here by yourself? Where are your friends, your precious Order of the Phoenix? Or have you lied to them so much that they refuse to help you?”
Snape said nothing, so Ursula continued. “I thought so. Hopefully now you see the consequences of your deceit. No one trusts you anymore, so no one will come to your rescue. All you’ve got is Potter, and he seems more than willing to leave you behind as fodder for the Dementors. That was my plan, after all, to make him believe that I was helping him. Of course, in the process I was turning him against you even more, so that when the time came, he wouldn’t lift a finger to help you.” She raised her wand, and cocked her head as if listening for a sound. “I think they’re here,” she said maliciously, and flicked her wand. The ropes binding Harry and Snape disappeared, and she laughed as she stood between them and the staircase. “There’s an anti-Disapparation jinx over the entire street, you won’t be able to escape. If you’re looking for your wands...I threw them outside.” She cackled, as both Harry and Snape pushed past her, racing upstairs.
Harry suddenly felt very cold, as if he had just walked into a freezer. His breath came out in puffs of fog, and his hands trembled as he reached the front doorway. Snape grabbed his arm, and pointed out onto the street. Harry looked, and gasped in horror. Hundreds of Dementors were circling the house, engulfing the other houses as they waited. Harry could hear Ursula still laughing insanely behind them, and noticed two wands lying in the middle of the street, surrounded by Dementors. There was no way they could reach the wands in time, and Harry felt a horrible jolt in his stomach, as he realised he was truly trapped. Voldemort would be showing up at any minute, and the Order did not know he was here...
“Potter?” Snape whispered. “We’ll have to make a run for it.”
“Are you crazy? There’s too many of them! Even if we get our wands, two people can’t fight off hundreds of Dementors!” Harry saw Ursula raise her wand, and moved out of the way as the resulting curse barely missed him, rebounding off the wall.
“Look, our other option is staying inside, wandless, and waiting for the Dark Lord to arrive. You heard what she said, the entire street has an anti-Disapparation jinx put on it. If we can leave Wyvern Road, we’ll be able to get out of here!”
When Harry looked at him skeptically, Snape cried out in exasperation, “Potter, listen to me! If you’ve never trusted me before, you’ve got to now, because neither of us can make it out of here on our own! You have to trust me, or we’ll both be dead!” There was a look of desperation and fear in his eyes; he was pleading with Harry, trying to make him understand. “Dumbledore trusted me, why can’t you? Please, Harry!”
Harry’s hand was on the ice-cold metal doorframe, gripping it tightly as he stared at Snape. “What did you just call me?” he asked, thinking he must have misheard. Not once in his life had he heard Snape call him by his first name, nor say ‘please’.
“Harry, we haven’t got time to discuss this. Come on, we must go, now!” Snape urged, ducking a hex which Ursula fired at his head.
“Okay. Let’s go,” Harry said, walking onto the front steps. The circling Dementors stopped in midair, aware of the two living people who had just stepped into their midst.
“On the count of three, run. Pick up your wand, and keep running. Don’t wait for me, I’ll try to hold them off. One,” Snape braced himself, looking up at the Dementors. “Two,” he said, his voice faltering slightly. “Three!”
Harry sprinted towards the street, fuelled by sheer terror. He could feel the happiness being drained from his body, he could hear the rattling breaths of the Dementors closing in on him, and he picked up his wand. “Expecto Patronum!” he shouted, pointing his wand straight up at the sky. The silvery stag erupted from his wand-tip, chasing away dozens of Dementors as Harry kept running. He was halfway down the street, and as he glanced over his shoulder he heard a shout and another Patronus soared into the air, though Harry could not see what it was. Distracted, he ran straight into nearly thirty Dementors, who formed a tight circle around him. “Expecto Patronum!” he yelled again, only succeeding in scaring off three or four Dementors. The circle around him grew tighter, and Harry found himself paralysed with fear.
“Expecto Patronum!” Snape’s voice shouted suddenly, and the circle was broken by a great silvery-white leopard, which chased after the cluster of Dementors eagerly, almost seeming to be enjoying itself. Snape broke through the mist, running towards Harry. “Go! Keep running, we’re almost at the end of the street!”
Harry ran, aiming his Patronus every so often at the Dementors who showed no sign of diminishing. The end of the street seemed so far away, and his path was blocked with dark shapes, creatures who were growing angrier and more determined by the second as they were chased away by the stag and the leopard. He could hear Snape running behind him, shouting, and willed himself to go further. Harry saw the streetlamp at the end of the road flickering dimly in the heavy mist, and tried to make his legs move faster. There was a stitch in his side that was causing him terrible pain, but he continued to run. Almost there, he thought, just a bit further...