Severus paced the length of the sitting room, two problems running through his mind:
His discovery of the new orders for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Harry.
The others were sharing information in low whispers, their voices a grating buzz in Severus' mind as they waited for Harry to return home.
He told the fool boy to not go prancing off to the Ministry, and, true to character, it was the first thing Harry did.
Severus arrived back at their home with Ritters only to discover that Harry had left directly after the Weasley twins with 'obvious intents' to make a spectacle of himself at the Ministry.
The Ministry that had changed its aims so quickly it was difficult for Severus to even comprehend it.
Severus paced irritably until a loud crack resonated through the house and Frederick swiftly got to his feet and loped out the back door.
Severus would hardly go chasing after Harry. He knew the crack was his son returning, and he would wait for Frederick to drag him inside and explain why he could never simply follow a plan.
This was chasing a dragon with a sword once more. Markedly less manic this time, certainly, but impulsivity and brashness seemed to be in Harry's blood.
God damned James Potter.
It took less than two minutes for Frederick and Harry to return. Severus looked Harry over quickly and was satisfied to see that, apart from a burning sort of anger in his eyes, he looked uninjured from his time with the god damned Dark Lord/Minister of Magic.
"Where have you been?" Black asked Harry, stepping over toward him with a blatantly worried look.
"And why were we given immediate evacuation orders?" William asked.
Harry stopped Black in his tracks by raising a single hand, drawing all conversations silent and eyes toward him in the way he was so gifted at doing.
"I want to hear what everyone found, and I don't want anyone to leave until I have," Harry said, his eyes restless as they roamed from wizard to witch. "Except for Mione, you can go lay down if you want."
Severus held back a scoff at Harry's altruistic sounding offer, the child was desperately devoted to Theodore's daughter already, and studied Granger for a moment. The girl truthfully did seem exhausted and borderline ill; her dark skin was ashen and she had a tightening in the lines around her mouth that spoke of a pain of some sort.
Narcissa must have reached the same conclusion that Severus and Harry had for she clicked her tongue at Granger and urged her to her feet off the sofa.
"Come, lay down, dear," Narcissa practically cooed. "I'll help you."
"No," Harry snapped abruptly, stopping both witches in their tracks. "Theo, you help Hermione then get back down here, yeah?"
Theodore jumped up at once and put his arm around Granger's waist. "Yeah, be right back, thanks, Harry."
"One at a time, I want to hear exactly what everyone found today," Harry commanded the remaining members of their alliance once Theodore and Granger slowly disappeared up the staircase. "I spoke with Timmy, and—"
"You fucking idiot," Susan hissed. "Alone?! Why?!"
"That's my business," Harry snapped, uncharacteristically sharp with his closest friend. He leaned himself against the wall, Frederick mimicking his pose beside him, and crossed his arms defensively. "He's… well, he's not the same mad man we fought before," Harry said bluntly. "He looks and sounds normal, he's playing a new game, a smarter game, so we have to be smarter as well."
Harry nodded at William, "He gave you all sixty seconds to leave the Ministry before he killed you. Anyone who still works there," his eyes lingered on Ritters, "should quit."
Severus closed his eyes and felt a warm hand caress his arm as he realized that his foolish son had truly went to the Ministry and chatted with the Dark Lord.
"Where do soul fragments go when they've been killed?" Nymphadora murmured nearly silently in Severus' ear.
Severus opened his eyes and stared at her thoughtfully. He would not continue the conversation, given the present company, but Nymphadora's implication was interesting…
Was the Dark Lord regaining his soul and sanity through the destruction of his horcruxes? Severus had believed it would operate inversely. His silent musings were interrupted by Harry's cold demand that people begin sharing information they discovered after Theodore slipped silently back into the room.
Black piped up immediately. "I talked with some of the Wizengamot members, Neville's gran," he nodded toward Longbottom who remained stony faced. "They aren't happy, they've been put on notice while it's 'Martial Law'."
"Current information, Sirius," Harry snapped, impatient and curiously on an obvious edge. "You know what? Nevermind. Theo, what'd you find?"
"It's illegal to marry muggles or muggleborns as of next week," Theodore snarled, his face darkening. "It's been kept hush, hush, but Nev's gran knew quite a bit about it."
"Marriage laws?" Frederick gasped. "Blimey. It's lucky we already got married, eh?" He elbowed Harry, but Harry was watching Theodore with a tilted head.
The boys seemed to be speaking silently, Theodore nodded at Harry's cocked head, Harry smirked, Theodore's lips curled up in a mild grin, and Harry turned toward Severus.
"What'd you guys find, Sev?"
Severus shared a grimace of distaste with Ritters then allowed the other man to share the information, as it was thanks to his careful ferreting that they discovered it.
"Arrest orders are being placed for all muggleborns," Ritters said flatly.
"That tracks," William said, nodding to Ritters. "My dad's old department is being rebranded as the 'Muggleborn Registration Committee'. They want complete lists of all muggleborns. Be easier to do if they arrest them first, eh?"
The room was in instant chaos as shouts and sounds of disgust were made by all except Lucius who remained silent as he undoubtedly knew better than to share his opinion. Theodore looked so suddenly pale that Severus conjured a chair for him, though the boy was staring at the floor in horror and ignored it completely.
"SHUT UP!" Harry yelled after a minute of indignant shouts. All conversations died, though the others all remained tense. "Are they pretending to have a reason for tossing muggleborns in Azkaban or no?"
"On suspicion for stealing magic," Severus said tersely, feeling dirty and disgusting as he said it.
"Magic cannot be stolen," Fleur Delacour scoffed. "Eet eez absurd."
"And I don't think they're going to Azkaban either," Lupin said slowly, sharing a look with Blaise. "Blaise and I found a lot of papers…"
"Lupin found them, I merely created a suitable distraction," Blaise smirked.
Harry's thin patience seemed to be waning and Severus idly wondered if he required a calming drought.
"What did you find?" Harry all but growled. Frederick tightened his arm on Harry's shoulder and rubbed his arm, likely in a fruitless attempt to destress the young man that seemed on brink of exploding.
"Warehouses," Lupin said promptly. "They've got them marked for 'equipment storage', but what storage requires four new, heavily guarded, warehouses?"
Nobody spoke for a moment, then it was Nymphadora who let out a gasp.
"You think they're storing people there?!"
Lupin shifted uncomfortable from his position against the wall as the others stared at him. "I couldn't say for sure, but they were recently bought in various barren locations, the floor plans were rather large and open for 'equipment', and they were heavily guarded. I- I don't know what else they could be for?"
Severus began to piece together the information to create an image that caused his stomach to curdle. Forbidding marriage to muggleborns, orders for arrests on fabricated excuses, secretive warehouses…
It was all eerily reminiscent of stories Tobias Snape used to ramble about on his drunken tangents. Camps filled with broken and emaciated bodies, men and women arrested for something out of their control, marriages forbidden…
"That fits," Nymphadora said abruply, speaking to Harry, though peculiarly echoing Severus' disturbing realization. Severus looked at her and saw that her hair had turned an odd shade of pea green that he had never seen before, though it fit with his own feeling of nausea that he suspected she must have been sharing. "Susan… Susan and I found something sick in the Department of Mysteries."
Susan jumped in and shot Nymphadora a look of absolute admiration. "First off, Harry don't fucking yell at me because this is important, but first off, Tonks is a bloody genius and managed to get us down to the Department of Mysteries, but there were twelve areas to search and we didn't know where to start…"
"Susan rightfully pointed out that time and prophecies weren't likely to be important right now," Nymphadora said, jumping in the story. "And three of the doors are locked, so I just…"
"Imperio'd a fucking Unspeakable," Susan said with a broad smile.
Severus gave Nymphadora a considering look. For someone with aspirations to become Head of the DMLE after the war, Nymphadora had began to play rather fast and loose with the Unforgiveable Curses.
It was… distracting.
"I did," Nymphadora said brazenly, raising her brows at Ritters challengingly. Ritters merely smiled and raised his hands, silently refusing to challenge her.
"Guys, I need you to get to the point," Harry said curtly. "What did you find?"
"They're studying magic," Susan told him quickly. "Specifically, how to transfer it from one person to another."
"That is impossible," Lucius said, speaking up for the first time. "Magic cannot be transferred. It is an old ideal, one from pureblooded families who bore more squibs than average. My grandfather believed it was possible, he believed that muggleborn babies could have their magic transferred to pureblooded squib infants, but it was never proven to be anything more than a fantasy."
Nymphadora curled her upper lip at Lucius in a sneer. "Tell that to the muggleborn babies they had on record who have died in recent tests."
Theodore slowly sank to the floor and buried his face in his knees while the others were stunned to silence at that piece of information.
"They're… they're killing babies?" Luna asked Susan, her eyes wide and horrified.
"And obliviating their parents!" George Weasley cried, starting the others who were still processing the horror of what Nymphadora and Susan described. "Fred, that's what those reports were on about! Remember?"
Frederick grimaced and nodded shortly. "Yeah, we read some top secret confidential reports about recent muggles being obliviated. Always couples, all marked as having at least one kid under five…"
"But how?" William asked blankly. "How are they finding muggleborn babies??"
"Through the Improper Use of Magic Department," Narcissa said from her place between Lucius and Draco. "The young man working there informed us that they recently were given funds to grow the department for a new project."
"They want to find incidents of accidental magic sooner," Draco told Harry in a rush. "It's usually tracked when kids are around nine, so they can make sure muggleborns get offers to Hogwarts, but now they want to find them earlier. The employee we spoke with said it was for the protection of other muggles, but…"
"But muggles have been classified as Class XXXX beasts," Charles snarled. He smacked the back of one hand into the palm of the other, drawing a side eyed look from Harry that he either missed or ignored. "So if muggles are beasts now, why would they need protected from babies?"
"They don't," Lupin said. He stared up at the ceiling then inexplicably glanced toward Severus. "You any good at history?"
Severus made a noncommittal noise. "I presume you are thinking of World War II?"
"Aren't you?"
Severus inclined his head slightly at Lupin then elucidated for the others who were either too young or too encompassed in the magical world to understand muggle history.
"It is reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's plans for genocide," Severus explained, slipping easily into lecture mode. "He planned to establish himself as a dictator of a racially pure country then spread his ideals outward. He did this by enacting concentration camps which were filled primarily with the Jewish population, in addition to those who did not fit his 'ideal' for a superior race."
"People in those camps were experimented on and seen as less than human," Black said, surprising Severus with his knowledge of a muggle war that ended before he was born. Black certainly had no parent who fought in the war, perhaps he read about it? Though, Severus found that less likely than the idea that Orion Black fought to free muggles from concentration camps.
"They were starved, experimented on, and ultimately killed when they weren't found to be of any use," Black said flatly. "It was disgusting."
It was disgusting and the parallels could not be ignored. It stood to reason that the Dark Lord could wipe out the muggleborn population much quicker through magical means and there were no foreign armies that would come to stop him.
There was this army. This army and the visibly weary young leader with the weight of the lives of muggleborns on his shoulders.
Harry closed his eyes and Severus watched as he inhaled and exhaled very deeply while the others exchanged horrified looks.
"Johnny, what did you find?" Harry asked.
"Borders are closed," Abbott drawled with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
"We're not doing any trades with foreign countries at all," the young werewolf girl, Monty, said quickly and factually. "Nothing in, nothing out."
"Zat eez similar to what Luna and I found," Delacour said. She wrapped an arm around Luna and cuddled the horrified looking girl to her side. "No portkeys, or international floos are authorized."
"All floos are being monitored too," Luna offered quietly.
"So we're trapped?" Ronald asked.
"Don't be fucking stupid," Theodore snapped, lifting his head and narrowing his red-rimmed eyes at Ronald. "You're a pureblood, you can probably piss off to Timbuktu if you wanted. It's- it's people like Hermione that are going to be trapped, hunted, arrested and experimented on!" he yelled.
"Theo." Harry waited until Theo jerked his head from Ronald to Harry. "Mione doesn't leave this house until Timmy is dead, do you understand me?"
Which meant that Harry would die before Granger would be released from her new prison.
Theodore nodded and then buried his face back in his knees, his shoulders curled as he undoubtedly felt the horror of the new state of the world in a way that the others were incapable of.
"This is… it's sick, but it's… it's brilliant, in a way," Susan said quietly. "Not brilliant great, obviously, but brilliant…"
"Cunning," Blaise added for her. "It is cunning and disturbing as hell."
"Which fits the Dark Lord's ideals rather nicely," Severus sneered. "Harry, did he share anything else with you?"
"Nope. Same old, same old," Harry said. He rubbed his eyes and squinted at the ceiling. "He wants me to join him, told me congrats on my wedding, and that was that," he finished quickly, causing Severus to watch him carefully.
Harry was an appalling liar at times. And Severus was certain he was lying then.
Frederick suddenly snickered very quietly, drawing a raised brow from his husband. "Oh, don't look at me like that," he grinned. "Is all of this," he waved his hand at the others, "bloody disgusting? Yeah, love, so disgusting. But… but Timmy congratulated us on our wedding? Voldemort, the Dark Lord, actually told you congrats on marrying me? C'mon, that's mad, darlin."
Harry merely shook his head at Frederick, not seeing the humor that Frederick's brothers did as they either grinned or chuckled themselves.
"It's not funny," Harry said softly. "You're a target, Fred. I- I think he'll try and kill you first."
Frederick raised his left arm from his side and flexed it with a wink toward Harry, "Let him try."
"Moron," Blaise murmured while Longbottom rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.
"Harry, mate, we done here?" William asked Harry with a glance out the window where the setting sun was beginning to cast shadows inside the sitting room after a minute of heavy silence. "Fleur and I wanted to pop by Grimmauld, see Mum and Gin before it got too dark."
"No," Harry said. He brushed Frederick's arm off his shoulders and looked around the room, his eyes spending a long second studying each individual within it.
"You, you, and you," Harry pointed at Severus, Frederick, and Susan after he finished scrutinizing the others. "Office, now."
He narrowed his eyes at the others that filled the sitting room and talked quietly with one another. "Nobody leaves, nobody moves, understand?"
As if to cement this command, Harry waved a hand and erected thick, shimmering, purple shields in the two doorways and the fireplace.
It was a mark of how often Harry made absurd demands that none within the sitting room did more than shrug their shoulders at this.
"Mind if we get something to eat from Mavis?" Ronald asked Harry lightly. "Been a long day."
"How can you possibly eat right now?" Longbottom sighed. "My stomach feels so terrible I might get sick."
Harry flicked his wrist in Longbottom's direction and conjured a wastebasket. "Do it in there," he told him. "And no," he added on to Ronald curtly. "Mavis, Blippy, and the others stay in the kitchen until I get back."
With that, Harry led Severus, Frederick, and Susan through one of the shimmering shields. None of the three hesitated before stepping through it, if Harry meant to harm anyone, Severus was certain that they would be at the bottom of his list.
The moment the door closed behind Susan, Severus felt the wash of heavy magic that Harry erected to protect whatever conversation they were about to have.
"Someone told Timmy we were going there today," Harry said immediately, causing Susan to let out a quiet growl of anger. "I know," he nodded at her. "I know it wasn't you three, so who was it?"
Severus cleared his mind away of the odd sense of pride he felt that Harry instinctively knew he would never betray him and focused on the horrifying idea that someone had.
"How do you know for sure?" Frederick asked Harry, his face screwed up thoughtfully. "It could be a trick?"
"He had a list with the time and date and the departments and who was going where," Harry said. "Only the people that were going stuck around long enough to get their assignment after the meeting, yeah? Pretty fuckin specific."
It was incredibly specific and Severus was very nearly dizzy with rage that one of the members of Harry's alliance would have risked all their lives by sharing that information with the Dark Lord. The fact that they were able to leave the Ministry unscathed was due to Potter Luck and the grace of the Dark Lord, an odd combination to be sure.
Harry watched Susan pace in front of the fireplace and then seated himself on the desk Severus and Harry shared on occasion. "Sue?"
"Ritters," she said immediately. "We don't know him at all, he still works at the Ministry, where'd he come from? Why'd he join?"
Severus cleared his throat. "Ritters was partners with Harry's father," he informed them. He arched a brow at the surprised looks he received, "I carried the same uncertainties as to why he joined Harry's cause and I asked him today."
Harry gave Severus a tired and crooked grin. "You mean you threatened him, yeah?"
"Yes," Severus said simply. "While I am unwilling to fully vouch for him, I sensed no deceit when he told me his motivations for joining."
"Plus Harry made him take an Oath of Fealty when Tonks joined," Frederick said. He sat on the desk beside Harry, sloping his arm over Harry's tense shoulders. "It'd be damn hard to get around that, wouldn't it?"
"As did Lucius," Severus added.
"And Tonks," Susan said.
Harry gave Frederick a swift and guilty look, "And Charlie."
Frederick merely chuckled and Severus began pacing the opposite side of the office from Susan as he pondered who could have given the Dark Lord that much specific information.
"So, death eaters, cops, and my brother?" Frederick asked Harry, sounding amused rather than insulted. "Do we think they got around it?"
"Let's not mark them off yet," Harry said logically. "Also, for the fuckin record, this is why I wanted Unbreakable Vows every meeting, Sev."
Severus made an irritated noise in the back of his throat and rubbed his chin as he paced. "The most logical suspects are the least likely," he mused aloud, ignoring Harry's jab. "Who else remains?"
"Everyone," Susan said tightly. "I'm going to guess not Tonks or Theo or Hermione."
"Blaise and Neville would never," Frederick added confidently. Severus agreed with Longbottom at a minimum, there was no less likely candidate than perhaps Harry himself.
Severus shot Harry an apologetic frown while he paced. "Lovegood?"
"She would never," Susan swore. "Luna is—"
"Not even on accident?"
Susan spun around, moving her heated gaze from Severus to Harry. "Harry, Luna loves you, she would never tell Timmy a damn thing. You know that."
Harry held his hands up placatingly and held Susan's eyes while Frederick and Severus watched silently. It was rare to see discord between the two of them, they were typically two halves of the same thought.
"Accidentally though?" Harry asked, speaking directly to Susan. "Could Luna be tricked? I've never required an oath like that from you guys. Maybe someone took advantage of that and tricked her?"
"No," Susan said confidently. "And if she did, she would tell us."
Harry looked skeptical, but Severus agreed with Susan.
"I do not believe it would be one of your friends," Severus said. He waved his wand and began writing a list of all possible names on the door in smoke. "Your misfits are perhaps the most loyal set of people I have ever met," Severus said. "I believe we can preliminarily mark them off."
He did just that.
"And Tonks, Charlie, Old Malfoy, Ritters, and Johnny," Frederick said. "They all took actual oaths that would be damn hard to get around."
"Johnny didn't," Susan said. She leaned against the unlit fireplace and propped her golden hand on her hip and tapped an impatient toe on the floor. "Harry, you never asked him for one, did you?"
"No," Harry confirmed. "We're friends, I didn't make him take one, just Tonks, Ritters, Charlie, and Lucius."
"Not Narcissa?" Severus checked.
"Nope. She didn't have an ugly little tattoo, did she?"
As someone with an ugly little tattoo, Severus refrained from commenting and left Narcissa on the list of most likely suspects. He removed himself and Frederick. He certainly never sold his son out and he would hardly have given Frederick his blessing if he thought Frederick would ever turn on Harry.
"Sirius, Lupin, Bill, Fleur, Cissa, Johnny, Monty, and George…" Harry said, reading the names that remained. He rubbed his eyes and this time Severus did summon a calming drought for him, one that Harry accepted without a fuss.
"I… I don't think it would be Sirius, Bill, Fleur, or George," Frederick said slowly. "Actually, I know it isn't George, I will go on a limb for him."
Severus remained silent, mentally attempting to establish a motive for any of the names on the list. Narcissa was likely, if she believed Draco were in danger, she would describe Harry's coffee preferences to the Dark Lord, but she had no reason to believe Draco would be in danger currently. No more than the others were.
Abbott was a contender, though as he had worked with Nymphadora to free Harry from Azkaban, working directly against the Dark Lord's wishes and the Minister's orders, Severus struggled to find motive for him to now turn against Harry.
Admittedly, Severus knew very little about Sky Monty, but she had seemed eager to volunteer to assist Harry and stared at him with open awe. Harry had given her and her pack food, a home, a sense of belonging while Severus provided the potion that allowed them to keep their minds during transformations, it would be a sharp slap in the face for Monty or one of the other wolves who attended the last alliance meeting to turn on them.
"So Lupin, Narcissa, Johnny, or Sky?" Susan said, echoing all their thoughts.
Severus cleared his throat, "I find Narcissa to be more likely than Lupin." It truly galled Severus and left an acidic taste in his mouth to defend the wolf that once nearly killed him, but this was not personal, it was objective and for Harry's safety. "Lupin is disgustingly devoted to Black, Black was willing to subject himself to Azkaban as an innocent man once more for Harry. The likelihood of Lupin turning against Black is laughably slim."
"I agree," Harry said, surprising Severus. "Lupin's a fuckin prat, but he knows a damn lot about me that he never told anyone. Why would he share our plans but not other stuff?"
Severus nodded in agreement, as did Frederick and Susan.
"Narcissa, Johnny, or Sky," Frederick said.
"Cissa, Johnny, or Sky," Harry agreed.
Severus did not comment, but if it were not one of the three, that left a true betrayal by one of Harry's misfits. He looked over to the similarly silent Susan and they had an odd moment of understanding pass between them.
For a girl so steadfastly loyal to Harry, she was as paranoid of betrayal as Severus himself was.
"Veritaserum?" she asked Severus.
Severus nodded, "That would be our best option."
"Everyone gets it then," Harry said. He hopped off the desk and summoned two vials from Severus' storage cabinet of potions and held them up, showing the clear liquid within. "Because nobody leaves until someone confesses."
"And then?" Frederick asked, also climbing off the desk he found fit to sit himself upon.
"And then we kill them," Susan said baldly. "Someone risked all our lives today, someone sold Harry out. It's blood in, blood out."
"I real kindly didn't require blood in, but it's definitely blood out," Harry said in a hard voice. He looked toward Severus, but Severus had no argument against it.
If someone risked Harry's safety, then they would die. It was war, wars were hardly won without casualties.
"Tell them they're getting interrogated or sneak it in their drinks?" Harry asked the three others.
"Cards on the table, I reckon," Frederick said.
"No." Susan waved her wand and quickly summoned the bottles from Harry. "If everyone thinks you don't trust them, it's going to cause problems," she said.
A sound bit of logic that Severus had not considered.
"What do you propose, Miss Bones?" Severus asked her.
Susan smiled, a feral and sharp smile that reminded Severus rather acutely that the girl spent nearly half her life at this point unwaveringly by Harry's side.
"Let me handle it," she said. "Harry, just seal up the house exits, put down new anti-apparation spells for the house, and give me… an hour, and I'll figure it out."
It was difficult to doubt the girl when she had been the one to discover the truth behind Gregory Goyle's murder.
Harry tapped his leg with his index finger while he watched Susan for a moment. "Fine," he said, agreeing rather easily. He waved his hand at his side then nodded, "Done. And I don't care who it is, Sue, I need a name or a body in an hour."
"I'll get it," Susan smirked confidently. She pocketed the vials of Veritaserum and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, preparing for a battle of sorts. "One hour."
"Want me to ask Mavis to make dinner for everyone?" Frederick offered.
"Please, and order all the elves to not apparate anyone out of the house unless you or I order it," Harry said, smiling thinly at Frederick. He accepted a quick kiss from his husband then watched as Frederick bound out of the office with his hands in his pockets and his head held high.
"Hey, Sue?"
Susan paused as she made to join Frederick, "Yeah?"
Harry glanced toward Severus then looked back to his friend. "Bill, Fleur, and George too, yeah?"
Susan winked at Harry, "That was the plan."
Severus waited until Susan left the office to walk over to Harry's side and place a light hand on his shoulder.
"How are you?"
Harry let out a short laugh, sounding none too entirely sane. "Oh, fuckin brill," he said sardonically. "Someone sold us out to Timmy, Timmy's starting some fuckin war I don't understand that involves experiments on babies, and- and…" Harry sagged against Severus' side. "And I'm bloody tired, Sev. I'm tired of the plans, of the bullshit. I'm just…"
"Tired," Severus supplied, feeling his chest ache as he looked at Harry's exhausted face. A young man of only seventeen should hardly appear so weary and disenchanted with life. "You are doing remarkably," Severus assured him quietly. "It is no light weight you carry."
Harry sighed and then straightened himself up, closing his face off from the brief vulnerability that had touched it. "Not much longer anyway, yeah?" he said, casual as you please. "We need to find that tiara, Sev. I'm not going to let a bunch of babies die from experiments or have muggleborns arrested for no reason."
Severus' throat felt as if it were closing at the reminder that those lives, those vague lives of strangers, would all be saved at the expense of the single most important life in Severus' world.
Harry seemed to understand Severus' inability to speak as he forced a half-smile on his face and gestured to the door. "Let's go eat, kill a traitor, and sleep, yeah?"
Which was hardly the oddest way that Severus had ever spent an evening with Harry.
The two of them had hardly stepped into the sitting room where Nymphadora, Black, Lupin, William, Fleur, Theodore, and the Malfoy's were still filling, when there was an ear-splitting scream from upstairs that caused Harry to jolt and Severus to grip his wand.
Severus' first thought was that Susan had found the traitor remarkably fast, but Theodore had lunged to his feet.
"Hermione," he gasped, running to the stairs as quickly as he could with Severus on his heels.
If Granger, quiet and polite Granger, let out a scream such as that, then it spoke of nothing good.
Severus followed Theodore up the stairs and was right behind him as his magic raced ahead of him and threw open the door for the bedroom he shared with Granger.
"Theo." Granger's cheeks were soaked with tears as laid on their bed and stared up at them, her rich brown complexion nearly as pale as Severus himself. She threw the sheet covering her body off and Severus drew up short to see a puddle of blood covering the bed and soaking into the mattress.
"It- she's not okay," Granger sobbed, sounding nearly hysterical as Severus was frozen in shock and Theodore knelt beside Granger's bed. "Something's wrong!"
Something was incredibly, obviously, horribly wrong.
Severus quickly summoned his medical kit and sent a patronus to Lupin, though Narcissa would have been his first choice if she were not a prime suspect for the betrayal. No words were required for his fox to deliver to Lupin, he would understand that his presence was needed.
As Severus sent off his patronus he knew with absolute confidence that Granger positively could not leave the house to go to St Mungo's Hospital lest she be arrested and her infant possibly taken for experiments, though the child should be considered a half-blood. And that baby had to be delivered then and there, 6 weeks early or not.