From HellChapter 11By Pigwidgeon37There is a lot of ways to spend the Christmas holidays, some better, some worse. None, though, is perfect. At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by what I see. (Isaiah 21:3) Things had definitely begun moving. And not in a good way. Except, of course, if one was fond of being held by two impressively large Russians roughly the size of Grizzly bears—only less intelligent and a lot more vicious—and methodically beaten up by number three and four. Not that his expedition had started particularly well… but Snape thought that not even a very bad start should have the right to lead to such an abysmal end. He had decided that to roam London in search of its less socially acceptable inhabitants might not be such a good idea after all, mostly because there was quite a lot of definitely sub-human Death Eaters who had specialized in hunting down and capturing Muggles who would never be missed, abducting them and using them for their very own, better-not-to-be-looked-at-too-closely purposes. So there was a small risk of bumping into one of them during his quest—a very unwise thing to do, considering that Voldemort had probably promised them fabulous rewards in case they dragged Snape The Traitor to his lair. The fact that Old Voldie certainly wanted him alive wasn’t much of a guarantee for well-being; after all, nobody needed ten fingers, toes, or two ears complete with earlobes in order to remain alive. Not to mention what the Dark Lord himself would do to him as a punishment. No, London definitely was not an option, and the same could be said about all the ill-famed parts of Great Britain. To get himself false Muggle documents, he had to go elsewhere, that was for sure. Two days at the B&B he would have hesitated to recommend even to his worst enemy—well, probably he would have recommended it to Lucius, though—lots of Muggle newspapers and three bottles of whisky later, he had made up his mind. Italy was the ideal place to go. In fact, he had chosen it for more than one motive: first of all, his Italian was acceptable, thanks to a lot of research he had done in the long-gone days of his youth. Maybe they didn’t speak like Cagliostro anymore, in fact he strongly assumed they didn’t, but it would be sufficient to communicate. More importantly, according to the newspapers the production of fake documents seemed to be a major branch of the Italian economy, which was exactly what he needed. Another reason was that he adored Italian food. To get the real thing wouldn’t be bad just for once. Then, there was the by no means negligible fact that he had read The Godfather and thus prided himself on having a fairly accurate knowledge of how the Mafia worked. In fact, it wasn’t that different from the Death Eater’s Society. Last, but certainly not least, he looked Italian enough not to raise suspicions when presenting an Italian passport. First he had intended to go to southern Italy, but had changed his mind when reading about the earthquake that had plunged that region into total chaos; not to mention the heavy snowfall, which made it an altogether quite unattractive destination. In the end, he opted for Bologna. That city certainly had its fair share of crime, prostitution and violence, so that he could be sure to find what he was searching for. Not to mention that the Emilian food was divine, the wine highly recommendable, and Bolognese women reputedly the most beautiful specimens Italy could offer. The mode of transportation was a tricky problem. On the one hand, he knew that, as long as his location was unknown to Voldemort’s bloodhounds, they were unable to trace his movements by Apparition. But there was another factor to be considered: the Ministry. By now, they had to be fully informed of both reasons and circumstances of his departure from Hogwarts, and he was ready to bet all his earthly possessions that they were very interested in his activities and whereabouts. This posed a problem insofar as he was by no means sure about the latest developments the think-tank called Department of Mysteries might have churned out. The Unspeakables were an incredibly crazy bunch, but there was no point in denying that they were also brilliant. And some of them had a very low opinion of Fudge and his politics; they preferred to believe Dumbledore and were certainly working on a zillion of projects, with the goal of keeping a close watch on Death Eaters, whether real, ex or presumed. There was an irksomely real possibility of the Ministry’s unblinking eye being focused on him. The result of these musings was one word: airplane. In its wake an even more unpleasant word: reservation. Behind it, fat, almighty and hideously irritating: voice mail. The B&B—as was to be expected—did not have digital telephones, which ruled out the possibility of eventually getting where he wanted by pressing the buttons an odiously melodic voice advised him to press. The recommendation, clearly aimed at the most hopeless of idiots, the Longbottoms of this world so to speak, to stay in line until an operator was free cost the half-blind mirror over the sink its pointless existence. Snape made his way to the local post office, successfully braved the adversities of voice mail and, to his astonishment, found out that evidently most of Great Britain had decided to spend New Year’s Eve in Bologna. His list of Words-That-Drove-His-Blood-Pressure-Up-To-Alpha-Centauri was hence enriched by ‘waiting list’. Using the last shreds of his remaining force, Snape returned to his room and let himself fall on his bed. The mattress, offended by this rough treatment, retorted by boring a hole into his back with a particularly resilient spring. And his back was not the only place being poked. There was something… Something that kept insistently prodding his mind. It was important. If it was important enough to annoy him but didn’t resurface immediately, it had to be extremely discomforting. Ten minutes later, Severus Snape sat bolt upright. Damn! To board the airplane he needed an identification. Merlin’s bloody grown-in toenails! How was he supposed to… No. He was definitely not going to deal with this tonight. His right hand grabbed instinctively for the whisky bottle, but it was empty. Snape groaned. No passport was bad enough. No passport and no whisky was definitely worse. He was unable to get himself a passport, so he had at least to get some whisky. With a sigh, he rose and trudged down the stairs. On his way to the entrance door he went past the TV room; the telly was switched on and blared out heroic music. Very heroic. But… nice. Snape decided that he might just as well postpone his metamorphosis into a full-blown alcoholic and instead numb his mind by watching TV. He was loath to admit it, but he liked the movie. Of course, the plot was insanely simplistic, but the images and costumes were quite ingenious. They even had a kind of Lord Voldemort—although he was breathing and speaking through a strange kind of mask, sounding as if he had asthma—and there was also a very Dumbledore-ish character. Although they could have given him a better name than Obi Wan Kenobi. Was that supposed to sound particularly galactic-exotic? And then… and then he sat bolt upright again, because Mr. Kenobi had just given him an idea. A brilliant idea, to be exact. Voldemort never failed to remind his Death Eaters how much fate favoured him—this time, though, fate was clearly favouring Severus Snape. It was risky, but he might succeed. Due to an epidemic of food poisoning in the Greater London area, his name was moved from the waiting list to the passenger list of a flight on 30 December. The line at the check-in was quite long, but for once Snape didn’t mind. He needed time to concentrate. When it was finally his turn, he put his ticket on the counter, informed the young lady sitting behind it that he wanted an aisle seat and concentrated even harder. The girl flashed him a smile. “May I see your passport, Sir?” Basically, it was like casting an Imperius Curse, only without wand. Snape firmly caught her eye with a stare he hoped was mesmerizing and said, “You don’t need to see my passport.” She blinked, evidently puzzled, masked her bewilderment behind another forty-eight-toothed-smile and muttered, “Here’s your boarding pass, Sir, gate and boarding time will appear on the monitors.” Snape silently resolved to file a petition with the Pope once this ugly business was finished, claiming instant canonization for Mr. Steven Spielberg. During the trip, Snape’s list of things that drove him out of his mind like toothpaste out of a tube you had accidentally trodden on grew at amazing speed. ‘Reservation’ and ‘airplane’ were ruthlessly shoved down to the bottom by entries such as Toddlers-Drinking-Orange-Juice, Old-Ladies-With-Cages-Containing-Hysteric-Dogs-With-Diarrhoea, Queuing-At-The-Check-In, Being-Poked-In-The-Back-With-Umbrellas-While-Queuing-For-Security-Control, and many, many others. Voice mail, though, triumphantly remained right on top of the list, grinning more irritatingly than ever. Either the British tourists had all gone camping or spread their annoying invasion all over central Italy—which, Snape thought, had at least the advantage of somewhat diluting the concentrated assault of middle class housewives and their assorted offspring. The males, as he had witnessed, were anyway reduced to meaningless objects, which only their ugliness prevented from being labelled ‘decoration’. So Snape had no difficulties finding a very acceptable hotel , and dedicated his first evening entirely to the joys of gastronomy-cum-oenology. Never one for treading much-used paths, he consciously moved away from the main throng of tourists, to lose himself in the narrow, winding roads of the historical centre. Bologna had been a thriving centre of commerce throughout the Renaissance, but it was also a quite rain-prone city. So the shrewd Bolognese tradesmen, in order not to lose a single client due to the frequent downpours—and probably because they had vainly tried to bribe God into turning off the rain on market days—had endowed the whole place with arcades, where one could walk for miles without wetting one’s shoes. This and the various shades of brick-red paint gave the city a warm, burrow-like atmosphere. Snape appreciated it greatly. After about an hour of wandering, he discovered a small trattoria; there were no more than maybe ten tables, three of them occupied—not by tourists but by locals. Had he needed any further conviction, the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread, garlic and basil wafting out of the open door and directly into his greedily flaring nostrils would have persuaded him to enter. The padrone, several inches shorter than Snape, and displaying the typical look-what-you’ll-get-if-you-dare-ask-for-the-menu kind of gruffness, guided him to a table at the far end of the room. His face lit up considerably when the tall stranger didn’t ask for the menu but instead inquired, in the conspiratorial tones appropriate for such occasions, what he could recommend. Thoroughly cowed by a long list of dishes, the names of which he didn’t comprehend because they were uttered at breathtaking rapidity, Snape decided to put his fate entirely into the hands of the padrone. He was sure that this might become a little more expensive than he wanted it to, but also infinitely more pleasant for himself; not to mention gratifying for The Lord of Hundred Different Types of Pasta. This choice alone would have been enough to make the landlord love him as his own son; after he had chosen, tasted and approved the wine, though—not without a complicated ritual of sniffing, tasting, tongue-clicking, finger-snapping and many oh!s and ah!s—Giuseppe Raffaldini would gladly have bequeathed his wife, children and a very small part of his money to ‘caro Severo’ (accent on the penultimate syllable). Snape had already reached a state of pleasant drowsiness when the trattoria was entered by four men, who were definitely not descendants of the late Quirites. Probably not even of their slaves. They all were about six feet five tall, incredibly broad, their hair was cropped in a rather brushy fashion and their jaws so massive that Snape suddenly understood why it had been possible for Samson to smite a thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone. The four colossal guys gave him a look of such concentrated loathing that even Voldemort would have begged them for private glare-tutoring. Giuseppe, apparently a little uneasy about his bad-tempered customers, served them the four bottles of grappa they had requested and then retired to the diametrically opposed point of the room where he remained, silent and sending glances of woe to a statue of the Holy Virgin. Snape thought that she, too, was looking decidedly uncomfortable. Maybe, had his stomach not been so full of Prosciutto di Parma and Ravioli di Zucca con Burro e Salvia and eagerly expecting the promised Bollito Misto con Salsa Verde, maybe then he would not have let his eyes rest pensively on the four men. He was by no means watching them. He was contemplating, ruminating, and discussing with himself whether the language they used was Russian or Polish. He knew neither, which made this deliberation rather futile; but it was the kind of peaceful musings well-suited to the pleasant warmth that was spreading through his body, fuelled by excellent food and wine. The Russians, however, were either insensitive or indifferent enough to completely misinterpret the dreamy expression in the Potions Master’s eyes. They had come to this trattoria to finalize a huge and, above all, very illegal weapon deal, confiding in the average Italian’s notorious inability to speak or understand even the most current foreign languages, left alone Russian. The black-haired, doom-eyed individual sitting next to them shook this confidence to its foundations. Ex-soviet KGB agents, now engaged in the prosperous business of shipping illicit, classified and very dangerous goods of mostly nuclear nature across the globe, have an innate dislike for their convictions being shaken. And so they rose as one and menacingly advanced upon Severus Snape. <><><>°<><><> “You know,” Harry said, lazily scooping up a handful of white sand and watching it trickle through his fingers, “it’s difficult to imagine that it’s really snowing somewhere on this planet.” Sirius Black gave a grunt that could be interpreted as assent and shifted a little on his beach towel. Harry mustered his godfather and felt deeply frustrated. He was never going to be as tall, as muscular, as curly-haired… Okay. He was never going to be as drop-dead gorgeous as Sirius. He dearly loved him, almost like a father, but his presence also made him feel his own shortcomings. Harry furtively looked himself up and down. At age seventeen, he would have expected himself to be a trifle more… virile. Pubic hair didn’t count, because everybody had it and it was hidden beneath his swimming trunks. Concerning more vital parts of his body stored in his swimming trunks… Harry sighed. He knew he hadn’t yet reached his full height; but was his cock supposed to grow some more as well? If it wasn’t, he could consider himself doomed. He had compared with his peers, of course, everybody did. Ron’s was bigger but the colour wasn’t particularly nice. Neville… poor Neville. That said it all. Dean and Seamus were about the same size as Harry. Sirius, though, was playing in an altogether different league. Not only cock-wise. To begin with, he had a dusting of black hair on his chest, and it looked good. He was slim, but not scrawny like Harry. He had that dazzling smile—when Harry had tried to imitate it, one of the girls at the beach bar had kindly offered to give him the phone number of a professional killer who, for a not-so-high sum of money, would shoot the surgeon who had done this to him. And why was it that girls seemed to be drawn towards Mr. Padfoot as though they were helpless little bits of metal exposed to a mighty magnet? “Harry, anything wrong with you? Why are you staring at me?” Glad to have a sunburn that provided the ideal camouflage for his violent blush, Harry stuttered his apologies. “And I wasn’t really staring at you,” he added, “More through you. I was thinking, you know?” With a slight frown, Sirius said, “Maybe Fortaleza wasn’t such a good idea after all. You miss your friends, don’t you?” “Not a good idea? You must be joking!” Fortaleza was absolutely smashingly brilliant. The climate was pleasantly subtropical, there were palm trees, white sand, drinks he would never have been allowed to even sniff at Hogwarts; there was this incredibly cool house, with a huge terrace complete with hammocks and wicker furniture… And in the evening they could go to the nearby beach bar, or walk to the next village. It was paradise. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t take offence—” “NO!” Harry said, “I would tell you if I missed somebody or something. But I love being here with you, I really do.” “Are you saying you don’t miss Hermione?” Sirius asked, propping himself up on one elbow and grinning at Harry. “Hermione? Why…” Of course, he thought, suddenly sad. Sirius had missed out on a lot. How many times had he seen Hermione? Once a year, probably. He knew so little of his godson’s life. It was as if a person were shown four single shots and had to deduce the plot of the entire movie from them. To extrapolate a whole life, even if it had lasted for only seventeen years, from the maybe twelve hours they had spent together before this common holiday was as impossible as it was ludicrous. A wave of compassionate affection flooded through Harry and he reached over to take Sirius’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, already feeling slightly ridiculous, “You… you know so little about my life…” With a bewildered grin, Sirius withdrew his hand a little and patted Harry’s. “No need to get all melodramatic, Harry. It’s a fact that I missed out on the first seventeen years almost completely. It doesn’t make me happy, but neither you nor I can change it. It happens all the time, you know? People meet and get to know each other. We just have to forget that, had things gone differently, we’d know each other much better by now. So, you don’t fancy Hermione. Can’t say I blame you.” With these words, he let himself slump back on his towel and, with a deep, satisfied sigh, closed his eyes, visibly determined to absorb every tiniest ray of sunlight. Harry felt as if somebody had just emptied a bucket of ice cubes over him. Maybe it was his own fault, he thought, and he had just—as was often the case—chosen the wrongest of wrong moments to broach such a delicate subject. Which raised the inevitable question whether, if this moment had been ill-suited for in-depth discussion, there was something like an appropriate moment. Or maybe ordinary people didn’t lead such debates during a vacation. Then again, how many ordinary people did he know? Harry began to feel very uncomfortable, as if his existence were resting on a kind of large disk he had thought to be quite solid, whereas in reality it was made of a particularly savoury kind of pastry. And his musings had taken on the form of overlarge mice, busily nibbling away at the giant cookie. He didn’t like it a bit. But the mice were insistent. How many ordinary people? The Dursleys probably were ordinary people, if one magnanimously overlooked their habit of keeping family members in cupboards. However, they certainly never discussed anything but facts. Teachers were teachers and thus didn’t fall into the People category. Maybe they had feelings and even discussed them, but they did so in the privacy of their quarters… or maybe on a different planet. Harry briefly visualized a planet, a rather small one, on which teachers were standing, engaged in vivid debates about the meaning of life. He giggled, because the thing looked like a porcupine with thicker quills. One quill detached itself and drifted off into space. It was Professor Snape. With a satisfied nod, Harry turned round to lie on his belly and started mentally tackling the question whether tonight he was going to have a Daiquiri or rather a Cuba Libre. <><><>°<><><> Dear Ron, I put a fireproof spell on the parchment, just in case you get this letter while near a dragon. I considered putting one on Pigwidgeon as well, because I don’t want him to get roasted, but I don’t think it works. I’m at home now, because Mum and Dad have, as the mediwizards at St. Mungo’s said, suddenly and miraculously recovered. Without the potion, which, by the way, wasn’t even yet ready. I think it’s weird, but nobody seems to share my opinion. Dad said it was probably a very light case of the plague, and so the Pepperup, or whatever they were given, was enough to cure them. Anyway, I got a letter from the Ministry, and a portkey, so that I could return to The Burrow. I can’t say I would have preferred staying at Hogwarts, but it’s strange to be here with nobody in the house but mum. Dad couldn’t take a single day off because he’s terribly behind with his work due to the sick leave. Bill intended to come but seems to prefer staying in Egypt because a new girl has moved into the apartment next to his—you know Bill. Percy is so busy playing the father (if you ask me, he’s giving Penny the screaming nilly-willies with his attempts to help and ‘take his part of the responsibility’) that he can’t spare a moment. I can’t say that I complain. Fred and George would be here, if they hadn’t accidentally blocked the wards on their own laboratory at WWW’s. Both they and the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad are working hard, but it seems that it’s going to take a little more time. Mum has lost weight—you should see her. She said she’d gladly catch the plague once a year if it has that effect. Dad is looking a bit skeletal, but mum is doing her best to get some flesh on his bones. I have never seen her in such a cooking frenzy. I’m doing my holiday assignments, and the rest of the time I’m bored. Besides, I’m also a bit sad. More than a bit, actually. It’s because of Hermione; she’s your friend, so maybe the story will interest you, too: Wherever she was during the night from 26th to 27th, she wasn’t in her room. When I went to see her the next morning, she was so scratchy and snappy… You remember how she was at the beginning of 6th year? Well, this was far, far worse. Of course she didn’t tell me where she had been and practically threw me out. And in the afternoon, she was GONE. Not at Hagrid’s, nowhere in the castle, simply GONE. Dumbledore organized a search—I almost froze my bum off in the cold—and when we all returned empty-handed, McGonagall declared that she really wasn’t at Hogwarts, but that they now knew her whereabouts and that she was safe. You should have seen the incredibly smug look on Malfoy’s face. I didn’t say anything to McGonagall, but I’m sure he had something to do with it. Hermione would kill me if she knew that I’m telling you this, but I’d bet my wand that she and Malfoy have something going. Small wonder she was so upset when I asked her where she had spent the night. Of course she doesn’t want me to know, or anybody else for that matter. Maybe you and Harry can try and talk to her, to find out more. I have to go, mum’s calling me for dinner. Give Charlie a hug from me and take care. See you at Hogwarts. Love Ginny <><><>°<><><> Dear Mr. and Mrs. Granger, I hope you have recovered from the shock the attack on your house must have caused you. I am truly sorry that this had to happen to you, though I am equally glad to know that you have suffered no physical harm or injury. Our Muggle Studies teacher told me that usually house insurance covers the financial damage, which certainly does not make this deplorable event un-happen but at least will provide a certain satisfaction. As we had agreed after the assault, your daughter Hermione was to spend the Christmas holidays at Hogwarts to guarantee her safety to the greatest possible extent. This was, as I have to admit, a grave miscalculation. In the late evening of 26 December, Professor Snape, the Potions Master of this school, who, due to circumstances I cannot explain to you in detail, had lately been under great nervous stress, attacked Miss Granger, apparently with the intention of raping her. My timely intervention stopped him before anything more serious happened; needless to say that he was immediately removed from the school. I would of course have informed you of the occurrence; but unfortunately there are more, and worse, news: Since the late morning of 27 December, Hermione is missing. The school and grounds have been thoroughly searched, we have performed locating spells of every kind, but all with a negative result. Not only is this a most serious and embarrassing situation in itself; it is further aggravated by the only possible conclusions that can be drawn: either Miss Granger has somehow lost her wand and is currently lost (or hiding) among Muggles, or—and this fills me with deep concern—she has gone or been brought to a magical location so heavily warded that locating spells cannot detect her. You will certainly have heard from your daughter that the Wizarding world is facing dark times, due to the rise of a Dark Wizard of immense power. The men who attacked you were his followers. If they have succeeded in abducting Hermione, I will do everything in my power to have her rescued as soon as possible. Considering, however, that she is Muggle-born and knows how to find her way through the non-magical world, we still have to take into account the possibility that she might have been so badly shaken by Professor Snape’s attack that she simply ran away. Should that be the case, it might be helpful to turn to the Muggle police for help. It seems that they are quite adept at finding missing persons. Should their search yield any results, please do contact me immediately. The owl carrying this letter will remain at your disposal for sending a missive I hope to receive soon. In the meantime, no trouble will be spared in order to learn about Miss Granger’s whereabouts. Please accept my sincere apologies for this highly regrettable incident. Should you need to see myself or Professor McGonagall, Miss Granger’s Head of House, personally, please do not hesitate to contact us. Yours sincerely Albus Dumbledore |