Chapters 221-230

…And the River is Deep…

Alina leant against crenellated battlements of the Astronomy Tower. Next to her, she could barely make out Cato’s intrepid grin in the shadows. While the other Knights were busy distracting Filch’s awful army of homicidal psycho Hogwarts cats, Cato had been granted the honour of accompanying her to the top of the Astronomy Tower. A reward, of a sorts; after all, the Knight Bus had been his idea.

‘That’s way too many stairs,’ Alina gasped. Somewhere in the castle below her a feral yowl announced that one of the kitten traps had caught a nightly prowler out to get mischievous students.

Cato sniggered. ‘Grow longer legs, shorty.’ Then he stepped to the parapet and frowned eastwards. Already the black night of the Highlands was changing to indigo hues. ‘You’d better get going, Alina,’ he said, suddenly very serious. ‘Remember, it’s eleven sickles to any destination in Britain. Don’t talk to anyone about anything. Come back via Floo. Winky should let you in to return; once a Hogwarts elf, always a Hogwarts elf, as the saying goes.’

Alina nodded. ‘I’ll be careful.’

Cato shook his head and gave her a wry grin. ‘With what you are planning to do, that’s kind of a pointless promise, isn’t it?’

He stared at her and for the first time she noticed his Adam’s apple. It bobbed.

‘I know,’ Alina admitted in a small voice. ‘I might die. But so might Harry and Professor Snape.’

Cato swallowed hard, Adam’s apple jumping convulsively. ‘Dumbledore’s Army, Alina. We’re knights. That’s what knights do.’ He shook himself. ‘Now out with that wand. Stick it out, the way you’d flag down a Muggle cab or car.’

Alina stepped to the ramparts and did just that. For a long moment nothing happened, and she was about to turn back to Cato, when suddenly a huge dark cloud split apart upon them and gigantic triple-decker bus came to a screeching halt, barely balancing with two wheels on top of the parapet. Golden letters on a painfully purple background proclaimed it to be the Knight Bus.

With a hiss and whistle, the doors squeaked open and a short man with straggly hair and a pipe lodged in the corner of his mouth leant out. ‘Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard jus’ stick out your wand ‘and, step on board, an’ we take you anywhere you want to go, as long as you can pay. Name’s Mundungus Fletcher, an’ I’ll be your conductor tonight.’

For a second Alina just stared at him. Then she gasped, as Cato elbowed her in the side. She inhaled the smoke of the conductor’s pipe which tasted like a mixture of wet dog and damp socks and promptly started coughing. But she brought up her left hand and held her elven sickles out to the wizard. ‘To Spinner’s End, please,’ she wheezed.

‘That’s all right then,’ Fletcher said. ‘An’ for 15 you get a mug of ‘ot chocolate, an’ for 17 it’s full English breakfast an’ because you’re so young an’ pretty,’ he leered, ‘I’ll add a kiss fer you free of charge.’

‘Just to Spinner’s End, please,’ Alina insisted and quickly she climbed on board.

The conductor turned rheumy dog-eyes to her. ‘Third bed to the left, darlin’, if you please. An’ if you change your mind, jus’ lemme know.’

Alina nodded and started for the bed he pointed out to her, only to be thrown right on top of it, as the bus seemed to drive straight down the Astronomy Tower.

oooOooo

In the blackness of the Eighth Gate nothing was left of him.

Severus could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. He had no body, no shape—no heart that was breaking with anguish. Harry was gone, too, although he knew that the magical ties that connected them would withstand even the nothingness of the Eighth Gate.

If he managed to open it.

If he opened it…

‘And remember, she is not dead yet,’ a whisper—or the memory of a whisper—floated to him through the void.

Without a voice he screamed the spell that would break the gate. They crashed through the gate and landed in the river with a splash. Red fires danced on the water around them.

They had reached the Eighth Precinct.

oooOooo

‘Bloody hell,’ Harry gasped and ripped off the burning robes from Severus’ shaking body. Behind them, the fire gate between the Seventh and the Eighth Precinct flared up in a wall of red flames again. ‘Severus, are you still with me?’

The Necromancer had shoved Harry out of the way of one of those deadly, dancing patches of fire in the Eighth Precinct. He’d literally taken the fire for him. Harry braced himself and groped for Severus’ neck, trying to find a pulse. But Severus groaned and irritably batted his hand away.

‘Bloody hell, man,’ Harry repeated, his voice hoarse with relief. ‘You’ve really got to stop with this ‘saving Harry’-thing you’ve got going.’

Though at the rate they were going, he wasn’t sure if any heroics at all would get them out of this place. They were more dead than alive and they had only just reached the Seventh Precinct.

oooOooo

After an endless trek through shallow, icy waters, Severus halted abruptly. He cocked his head, listening intently, then he stared fixedly off into the darkness that lay ahead.

‘This is it,’ the Necromancer said finally. ‘The Sixth Gate awaits us.’

Harry just nodded and tried not to lean on the other man. They were both exhausted.

‘Out with that sword,’ Severus commanded and plucked a large silver bell from his bandolier. ‘I hope you’re a good fighter with your left. The Sixth Precinct is usually swarming with all kinds of Dead. I’ll try to bind them with Saraneth and turn them away with Kibeth, but we will need that sword.’

Suddenly Harry remembered something and gulped. ‘And—and—You-Know-Who?’

‘May very well be waiting for us just beyond that Gate.’