Loving Lily: A Snily Story

Chapter 104 - A Grave Mistake

As her voice trailed off, Severus indicated his answer as he gave his wife the slightest of nods.

"Oh......" Lily pouted, "Never mind then.....you would know, Sev....You can read thoughts almost as well as....he can."

"Lily," Severus said as she passed a hand over her face. When she sniffed and looked down, he reached out and lifted her chin until her eyes were level with his, "Have I not protected our family all these years?"

Tears welled in Lily's eyes as she listened to Severus's words.

Our family.

Suddenly, it was as if her nightmarish marriage to James had been just that, a nightmare and nothing more.

"I don't doubt you, Sev." Lily said as she placed a hand on his cheek and smiled, "...,But I'm worried about what he'll do."

"Oh my love......." Severus whispered in a desperate sigh as his brow furrowed in concern while he gazed into Lily's face, "Don't torment me so....My heart cannot bear to see yours pained.....Let me do the worrying for us both."

Lily closed her eyes as she and Severus moved closer to each other.

Their lips met in a tender kiss before Severus lifted his darling flower as easily as if she had been a doll, gathered her into his arms, and carried her over to their bed.

Their coupling would change nothing, but that mattered little to Mr. and Mrs. Snape as they clung to each other while the world around them threatened to crumble.

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Ellery sighed as he glanced out his dormitory window that evening and wondered how his sister and her friends fared.

Still ignorant of Harriet's condition and the latest turn of events, Ellery idly wished his parents would have excused him from school to help Harriet with.....whatever she had gone to do.

As he looked around his lonely room, a sigh left his lips.

He would have much preferred to spend time with his sister than to sit in the drafty castle and ponder his lack of friends.

With Harriet gone, Ellery barely ever received a passing glance of acknowledgement from his peers, let alone a kind word.

He closed his eyes as he put a hand to his face and pondered his own imprisonment.

His parents went home every night.

Harriet had left on her own terms.

Somehow, it didn't quite seem fair that he should be the only one to remain trapped within Hogwarts' walls.

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That particular night would have been arguably the worst evening for Ellery to have accompanied Harriet.

Against her parents' guidance and friends' insistence, she had undertaken the expedition to retrieve Marvolo Gaunt's ring.

Tom bravely drank the cursed water he himself had placed.

His usual, arrogant smirk crossed his handsome features as he watched everyone present marvel at the wonder that the noxious liquid had no effect on him whatsoever, being neither completely alive nor totally lifeless.

Harriet had enjoyed too much of her own bravado.

After she retrieved the ring from its vessel, she bantered back and forth with Tom while the others went to ready the boat.

There was no warning, no lead up, no outward sign.

They all seemed to come at once.

Dozens and dozens and dozens of hardened, gray bodies came rushing up from the lake's surface, intent on dragging all five present down to join them under the black water.

It took Tom by surprise when one of the Inferi his older self had made actually showed the audacity of clawing his wand from his hand with its long, sharp, talon-like nails.

Hermione, Ron, and Draco worked to blast them back from the boat but by the time Tom scrambled back over to his wand, one of his undead servants had managed to tackle Harriet to the ground.

Anger welled in his dark heart as he listened to his beloved scream while she fought against the clawing hands of Inferi, which did their best to disorientate and confuse her as the ragged edges of chipped nails clawed through the flesh of her shoulder.

"INCENDIO!" Tom finally shouted the second he managed to get his fingers on his wand and point it at the cavernous ceiling above them all.

There was no time to tend Harriet there.

Instead, Tom shuffled her into his arms and quickly scrambled over to the boat.

While Ron and Draco saw them pushed out of the cavern and back to their ill-fated dock as swiftly as possible, Tom held his bleeding darling in his arms while Hermione's trembling fingers made bold attempts at providing care for her friend's deep wounds.

Draco's heart pounded in his ears as he kept glancing over his shoulder to keep track of Harriet's condition.

"Hurry, Malfoy!.....Or we'll be too late!" Ron snapped.

Draco didn't even pause to look over at the boy who had spoken, his attention remained on Harriet's well-being.