─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
After an unfortunate encounter with other Death Eaters on Tottenham Court Road, a random place where Hermione had apparated them, the four decided they would go to Grimmauld Place to hide since it seemed like the safest place.
Sara clutched Nico's necklace in her hand as she felt the sensation of apparating yet again; she was scared for the Weasleys and for Nico who had been left with them. The girl had no idea if he was alright or if he had been interrogated and tortured, she could hope that nothing bad had actually happened and it was only her imagination which was making the words scenarios pop up in her head.
Seconds later Sara's lungs expanded gratefully and she opened her eyes: They were now standing in the middle of a familiar small and shabby square. Tall, dilapidated houses looked down on them from every side. Number twelve was visible to them, for they had been told of its existence by Dumbledore, its Secret-Keeper, and they rushed toward it, checking every few yards that they were not being followed or observed. They raced up the stone steps, and Harry tapped the front door once with his wand. They heard a series of metallic clicks and the clatter of a chain, then the door swung open with a creak and they hurried over the threshold.
As Harry closed the door behind them, the old-fashioned gas lamps sprang into life, casting flickering light along the length of the hallway. It looked just as Sara remembered it: eerie, cobwebbed, the outlines of the house-elf heads on the wall throwing odd shadows up the staircase. Long dark curtains concealed the portrait of Sirius's mother. The only thing that was out of place was the troll's leg umbrella stand, which was lying on its side as if Tonks had just knocked it over again.
"I think somebody's been in here," Hermione whispered, pointing toward it.
"That could've happened as the Order left," Sara murmured back.
"So where are these jinxes they put up against Snape?" Harry asked.
"Maybe they're only activated if he shows up?" suggested Ron.
Yet they remained close together on the doormat, backs against the door, scared to move farther into the house.
"Well, we can't stay here forever," said Harry, and he took a step forward.
"Severus Snape?"
Mad-Eye Moody's voice whispered out of the darkness, making the four of them jump back in fright. "We're not Snape!" croaked Harry.
Something whooshed over Sara like cold air and her tongue curled backward on itself, making it impossible to speak. Before she had time to feel inside her mouth, however, her tongue had unraveled again.
The other three seemed to have experienced the same unpleasant sensation. Harry gasped, Ron was making retching noises; Hermione stammered, "That m-must have b-been the T-Tongue-Tying Curse Mad-Eye set up for Snape!"
Gingerly Harry took another step forward. Something shifted in the shadows at the end of the hall, and before any of them could say another word, a figure had risen up out of the carpet, tall, dust-colored, and terrible: the girls screamed and so did Mrs. Black, her curtains flying open; the gray figure was gliding toward them, faster and faster, its waist-length hair and beard streaming behind it, its face sunken, fleshless, with empty eye sockets: Horribly familiar, dreadfully altered, it raised a wasted arm, pointing at Harry.
"No!" Harry shouted. "No! It wasn't us! We didn't kill you—"
On the word kill, the figure exploded in a great cloud of dust: Sara collapsed right next to Hermione who crouched on the floor by the door with her arms over her head, and Ron, who was shaking from head to foot, patting her clumsily on the shoulder and saying, "It's all r-right...It's g-gone..."
Harry was coughing up from all the dust.
Mrs. Black continued to scream.
"Mudbloods, filth, stains of dishonor, taint of shame on the house of my fathers —"
"SHUT UP!" Harry bellowed, directing his wand at her, and with a bang and a burst of red sparks, the curtains swung shut again, silencing her.
"That...that was...." Hermione whimpered, as Ron helped her to her feet.
"Yeah," Sara muttered, "but it wasn't really him, was it? Just something to scare Snape."
Had it worked, Sara wondered, or had Snape already blasted the horror-figure aside as casually as he had killed the real Dumbledore?
Nerves still tingling, Harry led the other three up the hall, half-expecting some new terror to reveal itself, but nothing moved except for a mouse skittering along the skirting board.
"Before we go any farther, I think we'd better check," whispered Hermione, and she raised her wand and said, "Homenum revelio."
Nothing happened.
"Well, you've just had a big shock," said Ron kindly. "What was that supposed to do?"
"It did what I meant it to do!" said Hermione rather crossly. "That was a spell to reveal human presence, and there's nobody here except us!"
"And old Dusty," said Ron, glancing at the patch of carpet from which the corpse-figure had risen.
"Let's go up," said Hermione with a frightened look at the same spot, and she led the way up the creaking stairs to the drawing room on the first floor.
Hermione waved her wand to ignite the old gas lamps, then, shivering slightly in the drafty room, she perched on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around her. Ron crossed to the window and moved the heavy velvet curtain aside an inch.
"Can't see anyone out there," he reported. "And you'd think, if Harry and Sara still had a Trace on them, they'd have followed us here. I know they can't get in the house, but — what's up, Harry?"
Harry had given a cry of pain: Sara put a hand on her shoulder where her own scar was tingling slightly.
"What did you see?" Ron asked, advancing on Harry. "Did you see him at my place?"
"No, I just felt anger — he's really angry —"
"But that could be at the Burrow," said Ron loudly. "What else? Didn't you see anything? Was he cursing someone?"
"No, I just felt anger — I couldn't tell —"
Hermione did not help as she said in a frightened voice, "Your scar, again? But what's going on? I thought that connection had closed!"
"It did, for a while," muttered Harry. "I — I think it's started opening again whenever he loses control, that's how it used to—"
"But then you've got to close your mind!" Hermione said shrilly. "Harry, Dumbledore didn't want you to use that connection, he wanted you to shut it down, that's why you were supposed to use Occlumency! Otherwise Voldemort can plant false images in your mind, remember—"
"Yeah, I do remember, thanks," Harry hissed.
Sara felt really sick at the mention of Voldemort, remembering that the Weasleys were still back at the Burrow, having to deal with whatever dark force that invaded the wedding.
Then Hermione shrieked: Sara drew her wand and watched a silver Patronus soar through the drawing room window and land upon the floor in front of them, where it solidified into the weasel that spoke with the voice of Ron's father.
"Family safe, do not reply, we are being watched."
The Patronus dissolved into nothingness. Ron let out a noise between a whimper and a groan and dropped onto the sofa: Hermione joined him, gripping his arm. Sara felt tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
"They're all right, they're all right!" the bushy haired girl whispered, and Ron half laughed and hugged her.
"Harry," he said over Hermione's shoulder, "I —"
"It's not a problem," Harry replied before he could finish his sentence. "It's your family, 'course you're worried. I'd feel the same way. I do feel the same way."
"I don't want to be on my own. Could we use the sleeping bags I've brought and camp in here tonight?" Hermione asked, hugging herself.
Harry walked out of the room to use the bathroom and Sara found herself alone with the two.
"I think I want to go to my old room tonight, I'm sorry, Mione," the ginger Potter whispered, anxiously playing with the sleeve of her sweater; the four had changed clothes in the first place they apparated to.
Hermione saw the unspoken words hidden in her eyes and nodded, giving her one of the sleeping bags. "If you need any of us, we're just going to be here."
Sara nodded and turned on her heel, hurrying to the floor where her room in the house used to be.
The door creaked open and with a move of her wand, the lamp gas had started illuminating the room. It was a mess, clearly someone had tried to find anything of help there, but the only thing left that showed someone had lived there was some parchment paper and old ink on the desk by the window and the chocolate frogs packaging that still sat on top of the piano.
She collapsed on the bed that still held a little tint of their scent, but dust was slowly taking over and Sara sighed, letting the tears that had threatened to escape all the way there run free down her cheeks.
The moon was pitying the girl and so were the stars.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
-this is one of those truly boring chapters that are following the book and im sorry you had to witness this! i promise that something better is coming soon
-be ready for a plot twist
c<3