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The Lion, the Snake, and the Safe Room
Prologue
By Anne B. Walsh
Author Notes:
If it came from somewhere else, I don't own it.
Harry Potter stared into his goblet of pumpkin juice. He didn’t want to look up and see the black drapes hanging around the Great Hall. They’d only remind him of what he was trying so hard not to think about—Cedric, dead on the ground... Voldemort’s voice, ordering his murder, and Wormtail’s, performing the deed... the ritual, the curses, the screams of people under Cruciatus—
For a second he thought someone had been put under Cruciatus right there in the Great Hall. The noise was certainly appropriate, a high-pitched squealing that seemed to cut right through his bones and pierce into his head. His hands, hastily clapped over his ears, made no difference at all.
“What is it?” he yelled to his friends over the sound of hundreds of other people all asking the same thing.
Ron had his face screwed up and his fingers in his ears and didn’t answer, but Hermione looked more frightened than hurt. “It’s the school invasion alarm!” she shouted. “It only goes off when the wards have been breached!”
“Come off it, Hermione,” bellowed Ron. “Who’d be invading Hogwarts?”
Hermione glared at him. “Who do you think?”
Her last word rang loudly in a suddenly silent Hall. Professor Dumbledore was standing up.
“My apologies for the disturbance,” he said politely. “Students please proceed in an orderly fashion to the first and second dungeon corridors, where your Heads of Houses will check you into safe rooms. There is no need to panic.”
But Hermione’s words had been overheard, and panic was setting in despite anything the Headmaster might say. People were pushing and jostling to get further up in the line, and the prefects and teachers were having a hard time keeping order. Somehow, Harry, Ron, and Hermione found themselves pushed up against a clutch of Slytherins, ranging from second years to their own fourth.
“How’s your head feeling, Potter?” Draco Malfoy hissed, grinning all over his face. “Hurting much? Don’t worry, it will. You’ll see Diggory again soon...”
Fred and George just managed to grab Ron as he dived at Malfoy. Harry eluded their grasp and swung at Malfoy, who ducked. Harry managed to pull his punch upwards just enough to graze the braids of a tiny dark-skinned Slytherin girl, who spun and fixed gray eyes on his face. “Watch it!” she said indignantly.
“Sorry,” Harry muttered. He looked over his shoulder. A blob of orange several rows behind him was the Weasleys—he waved to Ron and got an answering wave just as his view was cut off. “Well, I guess we’ll see them later,” he said to Hermione as they went down the stairs. “What’re these safe rooms, anyway?”
“Four-person apartments to keep the students out of harm’s way in event of a disaster,” Hermione recited breathlessly, pressing her back to the wall. “We’ll be sealed in, only someone with the correct password can get us out. We’ll have everything we need to survive. They’ll let us out as soon as it’s safe.”
“Should just chuck you in one and Obliviate the password holder,” Malfoy muttered. Hermione grabbed Harry’s arm this time.
They reached the dungeon hallway, and Harry stared. All along the stone wall, doorways had appeared, every four or five paces, on both sides. Teachers were shooing groups of students into them. When the fourth person had passed safely through the doorway, it disappeared with an echoing boom, leaving only the walls Harry knew so well. Most of the doors at the end of the corridor where they were had already been sealed, leaving no signs of their presence.
“Move along, down this way, hurry up!” called Professor Sprout sharply from the end of the hall. The Slytherin second year turned to look at Harry and Hermione as she scurried along.
“Need something?” Hermione asked.
“Sure she does,” said Malfoy in a sing-song tone before the girl could reply. “She needs a father. ‘Cause she doesn’t have one, ‘cause he got sent to Azkaban, ‘cause he’s a murderer...”
“Shut up!” the girl screamed. “Shut up, shut up!”
“Too bad he never broke into our common room last year,” Malfoy sneered. “Then he could have taken you away with him. Wouldn’t you like that?”
The girl shrieked and leapt at Malfoy. He laughed contemptuously and side-stepped.
Straight into Harry.
They fell to the ground, scuffling and rolling around. Harry was vaguely aware that they were moving, but he didn’t care. Malfoy was a stinking bastard, and this was his big chance to punch the little ferret but good. But where had the girl gone? When Malfoy had dodged, she’d gone flying—had she hit the wall?
No, he remembered now—she’d gone straight through one of those doorways. Lucky for her, or she would have cracked her head open. And Hermione had run in after her, to help her up and dust her off...
Malfoy yanked free and got to one knee, and Harry launched himself forward, impacting dead on target with Malfoy’s chest. The blond boy toppled backwards—
But as he did, he clutched Harry’s robes, dragging Harry down with him.
Together, they rolled down a shallow incline and came to rest on a carpeted floor, practically on top of two pairs of scuffed school shoes.
“Oh no,” Hermione said.
The echoing boom was clearly audible.
Everything was rather blurred for a moment, until Harry found himself sitting in a chair in one corner of the small living room. He tried to get up, and discovered that he’d been tied down. Across the room, Malfoy was making a similar discovery. Gulping sobs were coming out of the open door on his right, which was the middle one of a set of three.
Hermione opened the door wider and looked out. “I’ll let you up if you promise to stop hurting each other now,” she said, giving each of them in turn a stare worthy of Professor McGonagall. “We probably won’t be in here very long, and there’s no reason to make it any worse than it has to be.”
“I’ll leave him alone if he keeps his fat mouth shut,” Harry said, glaring at Malfoy.
Hermione flicked her wand at Harry’s ropes, releasing them. “You?” she said to Malfoy.
Malfoy pretended to be interested in the ceiling light.
“Fine, stay there.” Hermione disappeared into the bathroom again.
Harry rubbed his wrists and looked around the room. Apart from the three doors, four chairs (two of which he and Malfoy currently occupied), and a small square table against one wall, the only interesting thing in the room was a very large wardrobe, ornately carved and with a mirror on the door. Harry got up and went over to it, and winced a little at his own appearance. His right eye was really going to hurt tomorrow, he knew.
He pulled the wardrobe open and looked in. “My robes are in here,” he called over his shoulder to the bathroom. “And yours, Hermione. And some with Slytherin crests and white dandruff all over the shoulders.”
Malfoy bared his teeth in a brief grimace.
“And some little Slytherin ones too.” Harry pulled out one robe and looked at the name inside. Meghan Freeman. At least I know her name now. “The drawers have our other stuff inside,” he said, opening and shutting them to look. “I guess they think we’ll be here a while.”
“They’re just making sure,” said Hermione, poking her head out again. “Because they don’t know. Battles can last a long time. Or there could be something like a siege. Or we could even lose, and there would be Death Eaters everywhere and nothing would be safe.”
“Your definition of losing,” said Malfoy. “Not mine.”
“Who’s tied up around here anyway?” Harry retorted. “Hermione, is Meghan all right?”
“The girl? Is that her name? She’ll be fine. She was just upset because she realized we’re stuck in here, and she doesn’t like Malfoy.”
Harry snorted. “Who does?”
“Good question.” Hermione looked Malfoy up and down. He returned the favor. “You know, I don’t even think Crabbe and Goyle really like you, do they? Or Pansy Parkinson, or Nott or Zabini, or anyone you hang around with. They just fawn on you because your father has money.”
Malfoy smirked. “That’s not the only reason,” he said.
“Oh, right, he’s also a high-ranked Death Eater,” said Harry. “So he gets to kiss a little higher up on Voldemort’s arse.”
He didn’t bother to listen to Malfoy’s reply, instead following Hermione into the bathroom. He had to talk to Meghan. There was something she deserved to know.
Author Notes:
I think it should be pretty obvious by now what this is (or will be) a crossover with, if the title didn't give it away. I might like to write this myself, but if anyone else wants it, I do have a lot of other stories to tend to... drop me a line if you're interested.