keelywolfe

A Lacking of Foresight: Chapter Twenty-Five
by Keelywolfe
Fandom: Harry Potter
Harry/Ron
NC-17

You can read the other chapters here. Except for 23, which is here. And 24, which is here.

Chapter 25

*

In which there are books; blood; and a wizard sees through the other side of the looking glass.

"You could just leave, you know," Harry said dourly. He was sitting on a chair he'd pulled over from the desk, the legs of it precisely as close to the door as he could get. It was little consolation to have a chair when Snape had to either stand or sit on the floor. If he would just leave, the bastard could have a chair or even a bed, hopefully one that was full of pins. Instead, he was just standing there, watching Harry like he was a particularly distasteful bird in a cage while Harry sent hateful looks his way.

That left them here, staring at each other balefully through the open doorway.

"Neither of us are going anywhere, Potter," Snape drawled, tapped Harry's wand idly against his leg. "You should resign yourself to that as I have."

"Don't trust your own spells?"

Snape's glare would have withered a first-year to the floor. Possibly through it. "I trust very little where you are concerned and it would seem that an Auror of our mutual acquaintance doesn't trust you, either."

"Yes, that is interesting," Harry replied, sounding anything but. It was all he could do to keep his growing fear from showing in his voice. "I did wonder how exactly you became acquaintances. Ron didn't seem willing to part with much information on that."

"I'm sure he didn't." Clipped and cool, Snape's expression never wavered.

"Something about a chat you had some years ago?" Harry needled. If only he could get the git to leave.

"A chat?...yes, I suppose you could call it that." Snape's voice was as even as ever but if a person could cast a death spell with their eyes, Harry had little doubt that he'd already be growing cold on the floor. "I doubt it would be of interest to someone like you." The word 'imbecile' was implicit.

This wasn't working. Harry tore a hand through his hair in frustration, wincing as it took a few strands for keeps. Snape was too stubbornly persistent and if the bastard had decided to put himself in Harry's way then nothing he simple said was going to move him. Damn him and damn Ron asking him to do this, and damn himself for agreeing to let Ron go without him the first place.

"Look, could we just set it aside for once? I can't just stay here," he snapped, "Ron's in some kind of trouble."

"And how is it that you know that?" Snape asked boredly. He wasn't even bothering to look at Harry now, studying his nails with idle interest.

"I saw him in this, he was screaming. Just take it and LOOK!" He held out the mirror, his hand stopping at the invisible edge of the door. Take it, he pleaded mentally.

Instead, Snape brought his hands together and made a steeple out of his first fingers, peering at Harry over them. "Really, Potter, you're an imbecile and painfully naive, but you're no fool. I'm sure you've reasoned that if I cross the barrier, the spell will break. Normally, that would be true but I try to foresee problems like that and adapt for them."

"If that's true, then it won't hurt to take this, will it?" Harry challenged.

He touched his forefingers to his pursed lips. "Let me see the mirror."

Snape took it with the tips of his fingers, not getting a centimeter closer to Harry than necessary. It occurred to him that Snape had probably thought that Harry had plans to grab him and drag him into the room or some other such thing. Truthfully, it hadn't even occurred to him in his desperation to get Snape to just look in the mirror.

The oval of glass was resting on Snape's outstretched palm as he studied it, looking at it from every angle before finally peering within. Was it Harry's imagination or had the man actually gone a shade paler?

"Where did you get this?" Snape whispered hoarsely, his eyes never leaving the glass.

"It was on Ron’s desk, I saw him in it," Harry said softly, "He was screaming."

They both stood there for a long moment, Snape still staring at the glass. He didn't even flinch when Harry brought his fist down on the back of the chair, knocking it over with a loud clatter.

"He’s dying," Harry said desperately. He was nearly flattened against the invisible barrier, half-ready to beat on it. "I know it. He’s dying."

Snape said nothing.

He had to see, he had to know that Harry was right but he still just stood there, frozen and silent. "You hated me," Harry said in a low voice. It was the only argument he had left. "You did everything you could to get me expelled, to make me miserable, but you never let me die."

Finally, Snape moved, startling as if out of a trance. He looked at Harry almost wildly before turned away from him, clutching the mirror, and Harry sank to his knees, lost. He stared blankly at the perfect stripe of silver that was keeping him trapped and blinked in surprise as a shoe crossed it, breaking the smooth line of powder.

A strong hand on his arm hauled him roughly to his feet. "Come along, we can't be doing this in the middle of the hallway."

"Where are we..."

"I said come along! You said you saw him screaming, do you want him to die while we argue about it?"

Harry snapped his mouth shut and followed. "But Dumbledore—"

"I'd say it's better we don't involve him. I believe the phrase is 'plausible deniability.'"

"Plaus—what exactly did you have in mind? And why are you suddenly so helpful?" Snape being helpful in any situation was suspicious as far as Harry was concerned, doubly so here.

"I gave my word I'd keep you safe and I plan on trying to keep it," Snape snapped. He looked suddenly amused, as if all of this had suddenly become a horrid sort of joke. "Don't take it so hard, Potter. I thought you always liked an adventure."

"I don’t like them. I just always seem to have them."

"Yes, well, I doubt that tonight is going to be an exception." Rushing after Snape, their footsteps echoing in the empty hallways, Harry barely heard him mutter under his breath, "I always knew you'd be the death of me, Potter."

If only that didn't sound like a sort of grim prophecy.

He followed Snape down the various stairwells to the dungeon, nearly running to keep up with the Potion Master's pace. When he finally led Harry to a door he didn't recognize, he could only blink in surprise as Snape started murmuring unlocking spells.

"Where are we?" he whispered, more than a little irritated. He might not have had much of a plan but following Snape certainly hadn't been part of it. He was more than half-convinced the man was just going to lock him in another room and make sure this time he included a silencing spell in his formula.

"Would you please shut up for a moment?" Snape hissed. Reluctantly, Harry closed his mouth, standing a few wary steps away while Snape continued to spell the door. Finally, after what seemed to be a dozen incantations, the door opened and Snape went inside. He didn't wait to see if Harry followed and after a moment, he did, stepping warily through the open doorway.

Whatever he'd expected to find, this certainly wasn't it.

"All that just to get into your bedroom?" Harry said in disbelief. He barely had a glance around before Snape shoved an armload of books at him that he caught automatically.

"If you would have paused a moment in your ranting and pleading, you might have realized that simply finding Weasley is going to be a challenge, much less getting to him." He glanced at the spine of another book before adding it to the stack in Harry's arms. "If he is in as much trouble as you say, I doubt that whoever it is left an open invitation for anyone to Apparate in. Especially if Weasley didn't sense this coming, something I find difficult to believe." He went on pulling books off the shelves, alternately tossing them to Harry or to the floor. "Someone powerful enough to fool him is certainly going to make preparations for any eventuality."

"Maybe not," Harry murmured. "Ron hasn't been at his best lately. Those nosebleeds…"

To his surprise, Snape nodded in sour agreement. "That's another consideration." He stabbed a book viciously back onto a shelf. "He probably deserves what he's getting for being such a fool by staying here."

Harry stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Snape barked out a short laugh. "Him risking his life playing babysitter for you? He's a true seer. Do you know what that means?"

"I know enough."

"Somehow, I doubt that. Far be it for the great Harry Potter to learn anything about the people he calls his friends."

"Please, could we spare that for later?" It was uncomfortably close to the truth. When Ron's Sight had first manifested, Hermione had done a great deal of research into it but Harry had contented himself with whatever details Ron gave him. It had seemed like a sort of betrayal to gather information on his own when Ron was so eager to share as he learned. Later, of course, he'd had different reasons not to investigate.

Snape gave him a particularly nasty glare but let it drop. "A true seer is actually quite rare, but only if you understand that I'm speaking of the ones who still have a working brain cell rolling about in their heads."

The floor was littered with books now and Harry had to step carefully through them to follow Snape as he rooted through another shelf. "What do you mean?"

"Someone like your Mr. Weasley actually manifested his abilities late. Most children realize them rather earlier. He was lucky in that. He was old enough to learn how to cope with it. They usually don't."

"I don't understa..."

"Could you please be quiet for a moment and listen! As I was saying, most true seers don't make it past the first manifestation. They self-destruct long before anyone even has a chance to help them. It's nothing like the tawdry little trickeries Trewlaney warbles about in her Divinations classes." Snape squinted at the spines of another shelf, gesturing impatiently at the fireplace and it blazed to life, casting the room in light. "They call it Seeing but it's almost more like mind reading which is why they encourage the few Seers who survive to become Aurors. That way, they can protect us from any troublemakers as well as from the Seers themselves. Can you imagine being perhaps seven years old and suddenly the thoughts of the entire town crowd inside your head?"

Harry shook his head numbly.

"Most of them end up catatonic, or worse. It's rare enough that no one's really been able to study it well and what precious little information they do have is mostly about containing it. No one knows what might set off the first vision. And Merlin forbid it happen in a Muggle child. Weasley isn't even all that powerful of a Seer. If he was, I'm sure the first shock of it would have killed him outright, being in the middle of the school as he was. He's powerful enough, though, enough that it could kill him yet. Or drive him mad."

"That must have been quite a chat the two of you had," Harry muttered, trying to balance his load of books enough for Snape to add a handful of parchment rolls.

"For someone how purports to be a Professor, you don’t seem to read much in the way of books, do you?" Snape sneered, skirting around him to make his way to a cupboard. He pulled a cauldron out of it and several bottles, stacking them in the cauldron and when that was full, into the pockets of his robes.

"Is there a point to this lecture?"

"My point," Snape said scathingly, "Is that Weasley should have had plenty of warning of a trap before he even walked into it. Which means whoever managed to block his Sight is certainly prepared to block us. And considering he's an Auror, I'd say whatever spells his possible captors are using to hide him are nothing compared to the ones he is probably using."

Harry was struggling to keep his grip on nearly a dozen books. "What you're saying is that we have our work cut out for us."

"That's precisely what I am saying. And whatever bits of your Gryffindor nature are flaring up, they are better left aside," Snape smiled thinly. "Not all of these spells are considered to be…proper… by the Ministry."

Harry didn't even blink. "Then let's get started."

~*~

"Damn fucking hell!" Snape snarled, and the deep gonging sound of a cauldron being thrown into a wall echoed mellowly around the room.

Harry slumped down in a chair, too exhausted to even respond to Snape's continued swearing. It was almost interesting, in a dim way, to listen to it. He should have guessed Snape could curse so creatively, what with his knack for inventing insults.

The smell of burning asafetida from their last attempt was still hanging nauseatingly in the air, resistant to even the strongest air cleansing spells. Harry rubbed his arm absently, already feeling bruises rising from the Se Astringo locator spell. The effect had backfired enough to knock both of them off their feet and Harry had had the misfortune to be standing in front of the bookshelf. Snape had fallen on the bed, naturally, although he showed his fair share of wounds as well. A particularly nasty burn stood out in stark relief across his forehead but neither of them paused long enough to heal their growing collection of injuries. Time was not on their side and every time Harry looked in the mirror Ron looked worse. So much blood…

Stacks of books that they'd already used were piled up on one side of the narrow table and Harry picked up a fresh one, paging through it with little hope.

"We could try a Loginquitas spell," Harry suggested.

"We already did, the Finitimus is a variation." Even Snape's biting tone sounded weary.

Slamming the book shut gave little satisfaction and neither did tossing it roughly in the used pile. He sank back in his chair and stared up and the ceiling, blankly wondering at the various wards he could see glowing bluely on the walls. "He could be dead already," Harry murmured hopelessly.

"Have a look in the mirror then," Snape told him crossly, slapping aside another book. "If he's already dead then we can stop this ridiculous charade of trying to rescue a corpse."

Harry set a fingertip on the mirror and pulled it to him, waiting listlessly for the swirling clouds to fade into Ron's swollen face. His face was bisected with lines of blood and seeing it made his gorge rise into his throat. As horrifying as it was to see, Harry couldn't stop himself from looking again and again. Bleeding, yes, badly hurt, yes, but he could also see Ron was breathing yet. Still alive then, that's what matter. Still alive.

He flinched hard when Snape suddenly took the mirror away from him and studied it pensively. "I wonder. You see him in the mirror…"

"Don't you see him as well?"

"Don't be stupid, of course not," Snape said absently. "But you do."

He sat for a long time, stroking the edge of the mirror with long, white fingers. Harry hardly dared to breathe for fear of disrupting his thoughts. Strange as it was to be trusting Snape of all people, he did seem willing enough to help and he knew a remarkable amount of locating spells. Most of these books weren't even in the library and he knew that Hogwarts had an extensive catalogue.

Snape seemed to come to a decision, sighing deeply. "I may know of a way to get to him. But neither you nor I are going to like it."

"What do we need to do?"

He fixed a dark glare at Harry. "How badly do you want to find him?"

"What kind of question is…"

"How badly?" Snape persisted. "How much to you want to get to him? What would you do?"

"Are you asking me if I'd die for him?" Harry asked baldly. "I would, if it would help him."

"Would you kill for him?"

"I'd kill you," Harry muttered.

Snape actually smiled, thin-edge and cruel. "I suppose that will have to do."

He stood up, clearing the table of everything but the mirror. "We've learned that all Aurors have a tracking spell cast on them so that they may be found in the event of an emergency, which is, of course, the first thing one should disable if one captures an Auror."

"Yes, but they use a different one on every Auror, so that's not useful to us," Harry frowned. "I doubt the Ministry would provide us with Ron's."

Snape held up one long finger. "But if you can see someone, you can find them. It's just a matter of finding the proper path. We've been going about this the wrong way." He tapped the surface of the mirror. "This is our path. As a trail of breadcrumbs, it's not particularly the best but we haven't much choice, have we."

"What’s so special about this mirror…"

"Are you going to spend the evening asking foolish questions or do you want to help him?" he snapped. "Even if we did contact the Ministry and somehow avoided a trip to Azkaban after all the spellwork we've been doing, by the time they did anything, I’m quite sure he’ll be dead. They try to avoid interrupting an Auror at work; otherwise, there would probably be several dead instead of just the Auror."

Harry stared at him in disbelief. "They just leave them there, even knowing they’re in trouble?"

"They don’t have much of a choice, Potter. They have no idea what the situation is, and going in blind is tantamount to suicide. Which is probably what this is," Snape added, shortly. "The forbidden curses aren’t the only spells that are forbidden. Now, sit down here."

He pulled his chair closer to the table and Snape set the mirror directly in front of him. "Whatever you do, don't look away from the mirror, do you understand me?"

Harry nodded and when Snape raised an eyebrow, he added, "Yes, I understand." He focused on the mirror and Ron, trying not to let the sight of so much blood and pain distract him. Just Ron, was all he needed to see. Just Ron.

"I'm assuming you have some knowledge of Numerology?" came from behind him. Harry nodded silently and Snape went on, "There's power in the number three, which we'll need and there's power in this." He snatched up Harry's hand and pressed the sharp edge of a knife to his palm. Blood welled immediately from the shallow cut, spilling out of his hand and dripping down onto the mirror.

"Weasley's blood," Snape murmured, "Your blood. My blood." More warmth poured over Harry's hand, doubling the amount on the mirror and he could barely see Ron through the crimson puddles of it."

"Let your mind go blank," Snape murmured and Harry realized he was directly behind him, his bleeding hand clasped over Harry's.

"I don’t feel anything."

"Stop trying to feel it, idiot! Just do it!"

"I…He's screaming," Harry said suddenly. It was like an echo in the back of his head, itching inside it and growing louder.

"That's good, don't let it go."

"He's screaming," Harry repeated, his eyes aching but he couldn't look away, "He's screaming, god, he's screaming."

"Concentrate, you insufferable little bastard! If you can hear him, you're close."

Close didn't seem like the proper word for it. His vision was filling with blood, the crimson wash of it blocking out everything else and Ron was screaming, hoarse and shrill and it felt like his bones were trying to tear through his flesh. His skin was on fire and dimly heard a low moan mingling with the shrieks, couldn't tell if they were his or Snape's only that the tearing pain was growing, blood as thin as paint squelching between his fingers and the fire slipped into his lungs, burning, horrid pain that seemed to go on and on. Nothing, nothing but the screaming and blood.

end chapter 25