Chapter Five: Endgame

"I'LL BET HE DID IT ON PURPOSE! HE WAS TRYING TO HELP YOU AND YOU STOLE HIS BODY. YOU ARE A - "

"Ron," Dumbledore interrupted sharply. "Stop it. Calm down. Let me remind you that this was all entirely the idea of you three-"

"Send me back," Snape demanded urgently. "Send me back now." Hermione's sharp ears picked up his next words, as he lowered his voice for Dumbledore's attention alone. "While I still have the courage...."

Dumbledore laid a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"That may not be possible. I am not sure the conditions in which this exchange took place can be easily repeated."

He looked very grim.

"Why not, Professor?" Hermione enquired, frightened. "What...what has gone wrong?"

Dumbledore lifted his hand to his brow. "Severus. This is more your area of specialism, and you do have a certain ... personal insight as to what happened. What is your reading of the situation?"

Snape raised an eyebrow. It looked very odd to see such a Snape-like, jeering expression on Harry's face.

"Apart, you mean, from the fact that these monumentally stupid children have been interfering yet again with matters beyond their comprehension and abilities to handle?"

"Yes, Severus. Apart from that."

"He did not have sufficient control over the spell. He could not maintain the meld. And he became trapped in the body where he found himself when the spell failed. As I was . . . in a rather disconnected and dreaming state, my mind managed to flee down the avenue of escape the spell had opened up."

Dumbledore sighed. "I feared it was that. Yes, Hermione –"

Hermione was bouncing on her toes almost as she did in class when she was eager to answer a question. "But Professor, it did work!"

"Work?" Snape said incredulously. "You think your friend now languishing in the Dark Lord's dungeon instead of myself is a mark of your success at spells you have no actual grasp over? Surely even Potter's self-destructive tendencies fall short of thinking this a desirable result."

"No, of course not!" Hermione faced Dumbledore directly. "But we got the location, Professor. We know where he is. Where Harry is. Where... where Voldemort's lair is."

The boy with the peculiarly adult, sneering expression and Professor Dumbledore both turned, arrested, to look at her.

"Give me the location references," Dumbledore snapped out. "There is no time to lose."

There followed frenzied consultation. Direct assault was rejected. The Order was not ready to take on Voldemort and his Death Eaters in a head-on confrontation. The lair was undoubtedly rigged with all sorts of spells and defences which could only work against them. The ideal, it was agreed, would be to find a way of removing Snape – or should that be Harry – before anyone could respond. Undoubtedly, Voldemort's lair would be guarded by all sorts of sensors and alerts. Any intrusion would set off immediate alarms. Harry – or should that be Snape – would be largely helpless, physically weak and without a wand.

"The simple approach would seem best," Dumbledore decided. "Harry will not be able to Disapparate; he has no wand and has not been taught how yet anyway. A Portkey then, that is the answer. I will Apparate to the location references, and take with me a Portkey tuned to a safe place, which can only be activated by myself, Professor Snape and Harry."

"You will Apparate?" Snape's lip curled. "I think not, Albus. It needs to be me. With all the Confundus charms there will be set around the place, I am the only who could Apparate so precisely to where I, where Harry, am being held. My own body will draw me."

Dumbledore hesitated, looking at Snape over his half-moon glasses.

"Yes..." he said reluctantly. "I suppose you have a point, Severus. But Severus, do not touch him."

"I beg your pardon?" Snape looked haughty.

"Do not touch him. Physical touch may be the one thing that will recall each of you, instantly, to your own bodies. This would leave you back in chains, possibly unconscious, and Harry, befuddled and not knowing what is going on, waving a wand in Voldemort's lair."

Snape stared at him, then nodded sharply.

"I will just hold out the Portkey for him to touch. I will need a shielded container in which to transport it as well."

"Ron, Hermione . . . send urgent messages to Arthur Weasley. We need immediate approval of a Portkey. Remus is already on his way. We will need help to set all this up so swiftly."

Dumbledore and Snape strode together out of the room. The old study had been set up as a magic laboratory (heavily guarded not only against outside forces, but also Fred and George). There, they set to work.

Everything was ready. All that remained was just to check that Harry was alone in his cell.

The mind-touch was even more dangerous now, with both parties to it in perilous and fragile states.

Snape was standing by the fireplace. Harry's green eyes glittered coldly as he nodded at Dumbledore that he was ready to begin.

Harry supposed that, objectively, not much time had passed since he first found himself slumped, trembling with pain, in the freezing cell. It seemed quite long enough, however. Long enough for him to have reviewed all the myriad ways in which Voldemort and his Death-Eaters could inflict further pain upon him. Long enough for him to wonder whether it would be better, or worse, if Voldemort knew he was not in fact the traitor, Snape, but the famous Harry Potter.

Long enough to wonder whether the Order had any chance at all of helping him. He did not know where Snape had gone. Perhaps he had died from the shock of his experiences, and he, Harry, was now animating his body...

"Potter."

Harry's head jerked. "Sn..Snape?"

"Potter, are you alone?"

The touch on his mind was the merest whisper, a butterfly wing delicately skimming over his thoughts.

"Yes..."

"Have they – visited you since I left?"

"No."

"Good. But we have little time."

The next moment, a familiar crack rang out in the darkness. Harry peered up at his own shadowy form bending over him.

"Sn...Snape?"

"I have a Portkey," Snape rapped out in a harsh whisper, his hand indicating his left pocket. "In just a moment we can depart. But first – "

Snape touched the tip of his wand to the chains weighing down his own body. He murmured something, and the locks sprang open.

"Now – " Snape began, his hand moving swiftly towards his pocket. At that very moment, the cell door burst open in a flood of sickly green light.

It was Bellatrix again, and with her was Lucius Malfoy.

"IMPEDIMENTA!" she yelled before Snape had a chance to react. Frozen, he fell sideways, sprawling beside Harry on the floor.

"Well now," Bellatrix was practically purring. "When the Apparating Alarm sounded, I had no idea it was going to bring us such a tasty treat. Look, Lucius! Look who it is!"

"Harry Potter." Lucius Malfoy's voice was as smug and self-satisfied as Harry had ever heard it. "Bella, my dear, our Lord is going to be so very pleased with us! He is already waiting in pleasurable anticipation to deal with Snape here, once he has been been broken down yet further. Now we can bring him an appetizer as well – or perhaps even dessert!"

Both laughed and advanced further into the cell. Neither Harry nor Snape found the situation quite so amusing.

"But first," Bellatrix said brightly, "I think we should give Harry some entertainment. It would be such a pity for him to come all the way here and spend no time at all with Severus. Why, I had no idea that you two were such good friends. But then, Severus, there are so many things we did not know about you, are there not?"

"Yes..." Malfoy said slowly. "But how did he get here? How did he locate us?"

Bellatrix shrugged. "He will shortly have no secrets left to him. If he is the best they could send, it is not impressive. But first – "

While Bellatrix and Malfoy continued their taunting conversation, Snape had doggedly been working to throw off the worst effects of the curse. With great effort, he found he could, somewhat clumsily, move one hand slightly.

"Potter!" Harry heard in his head. "Don't forget the Portkey! Golfball, wrapped in handkerchief. Left pocket."

At that, Snape, exerting his will, managed to move his hand: jerkily, and just a few inches. But it was enough. His fingers – Harry's fingers – closed on the arm of his own body.

The world vanished, with a whirling maelstrom and a roar like the sucking of the sea. Gasping and sick, Harry discovered that he was back in his own body. Why? Why had Snape done that-?

His largely immobile body was kicked roughly out of the way. Malfoy's shoes had pointed toes. It hurt. Still paralysed, he found he could nevertheless see and hear clearly as Bellatrix and Malfoy pointed their wands at Severus Snape.

Harry tried to close his mind to what followed. He could not, of course, have closed his ears, even if he were not under a spell. " u Why? /u " was the thought which kept rampaging through his head. Snape had swapped them back. He had left Harry with the Portkey, giving him a slim chance of escape once he was able to move. He had deliberately chosen the punishment even now being inflicted on him. But why? Snape loathed him. He always had.

Finally, Bellatrix and Malfoy seemed to tire of their game. Or perhaps they realized that if they went any further, they would end up depriving Lord Voldemort of his pleasures. At any rate, they left Snape in a heap and turned their attentions to Harry. Bellatrix plucked his wand from his limp hand.

"Enervate!"

Now able to move, Harry stared at her, at Malfoy, at Snape's semi-conscious body.

"The Portkey, Potter."

It was the merest thread of a sound. And it was right there in his pocket, he could touch it and in an instant be whisked back to safety –

Malfoy had narrowed his eyes.

"Wait." He said abruptly. "Potter would not have come here without some means of returning. Cover him with your wand, Bella, and I will search him."

"Now, Harry. Go." Snape was even fainter than before.

Harry took a step back as Malfoy approached. He couldn't get the Portkey to Snape in a such a way that both of them could touch it before Malfoy or Bellatrix were able to hex him down. But he just had to touch it, that was all, and he himself would be gone –

For a split second, Harry stood poised in indecision. Hermione had once accused him of having a saving-people-thing. Could he just leave, just go, without at least trying to save Severus Snape? But what could he do?

Harry's hand closed on the object in his pocket....

"WAIT!" he said loudly.

Malfoy eyed him. "What for, Potter?"

Harry's mind raced. "I have – I have a Muggle weapon in my pocket. I'm holding it now. It's called a grenade. We thought there would be too many magical defences, so I brought this. If you move any closer, or if you try to put a spell on me, I will blow all of us up." He tried for a jaunty tone. "I don't know how large the explosion will be. It might get Lord Voldemort himself, who knows..."

Malfoy had paused. He still looked deeply suspicious.

"He's lying," Bellatrix said softly.

"Perhaps." Malfoy was thinking deeply. "Perhaps. He was brought up by Muggles, he does know about their filthy devices...Or perhaps it is something else he has in his pocket. A Portkey, for example."

Harry tried to keep his face bland and still. His heart was beating very fast. He would have just the one chance – just the once chance –

He managed to find it in himself to produce a pleased laugh. Malfoy and Bellatrix, taken aback, exchanged quick glances.

"Mr Malfoy," Harry said carefully. "You said it yourself. You asked how I got here. I had help. While you two have been down here with us, all of your friends are under atta – MAD-EYE!"

Harry looked over the Death Eaters' shoulders as if in vast relief and delight. They both span round, wands raised, to face the open cell door.

With the reflexes trained by Quidditch, Harry literally flung himself across the cell, releasing the Portkey from its coverings mid-leap. He clutched hold of Snape's body as hard as he could at the very instant as the familiar wrench in his navel began, and hooked them both from this moment of existence into another.

"Well," said Fred.

"Goodness me," said George.

Harry, entwined with Snape, landed with a resounding thud in the centre of the kitchen floor in number 12, Grimmauld Place. Ginny, Hermione and Ron all leaped round in shock. They had been setting the table for dinner, although none of them had felt very hungry.

"I did not know," said Fred.

"That you and Snape felt that way about each other," continued George.

Harry ignored them, and struggled to his knees. Fred and George stopped smirking when they saw the condition Snape was in. They still, however, looked most relieved to see Harry and Snape back and each, apparently, more or less in one piece.

"Are you Harry – or Professor Snape?" Hermione was demanding of him.

"Harry," replied Harry.

He was then pulled to his feet in a fierce hug.

"Oh, Harry, are you all right? You saved him, Harry!" Hermione beamed.

"Well – no more than he saved me –"Harry mumbled awkwardly, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Hadn't somebody better fetch help? I think Snape will need to go to St Mungo's for treatment."

Snape had slowly been stirring. At this, he murmured some words which only Harry and Hermione were close enough to make out.

"Professor Snape, Potter. Ten points - from - Gryffindor."

His lip curled. This was a familiar enough sight. Funnily enough, though, Harry could almost have sworn it was not in a sneer, but the sketch of a smile.