Chapter 36: Substitute Heroes
[View Online] [Printer Friendly Version of This Chapter]
Chapter 36 — Substitute Heroes
Upstairs in Grimmauld Place, in the room Snape shared with Lupin, Harry sat on the end of the bed, hunched in the enveloping folds of his charm-warmed cloak. The cold spiking his marrow was slow to ease, and it perniciously drained his strength.
"No ill effects from prison?" Snape asked. He moved about the room pulling potion bottles from the shelves and mixing in a cold cauldron. "You truly were treated well?"
Harry shrugged and nodded reassuringly. Voice still rough, he said, "They were perfectly polite — well, one guard was a bit of an arse . . ." He shrugged again to dismiss this complaint. He had lots of things he wanted to say, but they were undoubtedly being watched if not listened in on. He waited and took his cue from Snape for what to discuss.
Snape used a match to light the burner under a cauldron. Harry blinked at that. "Want to borrow my wand?"
Snape shook his stringy hair. "It's all right. I've learned to live without."
Harry laughed in a bark. "Ha! Have you now? No more mocking me for my Muggle ways, Severus."
Snape's warm gaze slid over to him, nearly obscured by his unkempt hair.
More soberly, Harry said, "You look like a Potions Master again."
"You make that sound like it's a bad thing," Snape drawled.
Harry hunched over and better wrapped his cloak around himself, wondering if he should renew the charm. Perhaps the room itself was cold.
"The hearth's not lit," Harry commented.
Snape drew out the stirring stick several times, testing the viscosity. He said, "We have to ration wood."
"Why?"
"There is a shortage of just about everything. Partly it is the chaos outside, partly poor organization inside exacerbated by a shifting of roles. Procurement of supplies is gradually improving, but this is a rather large house, with many hearths to feed. The logs there on the grate are for the early morning. Someone usually comes in and warm the walls and floor with a spell after breakfast. That helps."
"They need to get Kreacher on their side," Harry observed. He pulled out his wand and warmed the walls himself, thinking it wise to skip the wall covered in potion-laden shelves. He then sat, hunched more, waiting for the brewing to complete on what he hoped was a Bone-Toasting Draught, if there was such a thing.
Snape's hand endlessly circled, alternately stirring and testing the potion. Harry closed his eyes and, like he had done so many times in prison, reached out in his inward world and . . . stopped cold, stunned silly.
The forest of Harry's mind hummed with Death Eaters, hundreds of them, perhaps a thousand or more. In his inner vision he huddled, small, amidst this dark star-scape, fixed in place by his own amazement. The few dozen servants that bolstered him in prison were a club team in comparison. Wanting to better know, to better feel, he stretched out to touch the shadows, and was over-swept by a headlong surge of potential strength. As his mind latched onto a few shadows here, it slipped away from others there, only to slip free again and rush in another direction, wave tossed, unable to find anchor, at the same time taunted and overwhelmed by the aura of obscene power. Harry had no defenses against the rush and retreat of this extra-sensory onslaught. He lost track of his physical self and slumped to the floor, inert.
