Chapter Text
Draco waited until his mum disappeared through the door before taking action. He hurried to his brother’s bed and shook him awake.
“What? Draco what?” Harry’s sleep slurred voice pierced the murky darkness of their shared bedroom.
“Come on, get up we have to go help dad.” Draco hoisted his brother into a sitting position. “Mum went to go look for him but I have a bad feeling.”
Harry nodded his head sleepily, swinging his feet over the side of the bed. “Okay, but we should get back up.”
“Way ahead of you. I wrote a note for Hermione telling her to meet us in an empty classroom on the third floor. Theo and Blaise will be easy to get from the Dungeons.”
“What about Ron or Neville?” They both slipped on cloaks and slippers as they spoke.
“Gryffindor tower is too far away. Plus I don’t know if Ron or Neville will even want to help us.”
“I guess. Do you think we should tell the Headmaster?” Harry and Draco made their way to the front door of their family’s quarters. They paused and Draco looked at him seriously.
“I don’t know Harry, Dumbledore didn’t listen to dad before, why would he listen to us now?”
He guessed Draco had a point. They silently snuck out of their home and made their way to the Slytherin Common Room. The Dungeons, which the Snape family lived one short flight above, housed the Slytherin Common Room as well as a secret passageway that bypassed the main staircase and deposited you on the second floor. After grabbing their friends the four students made their way up the passage to the second floor.
They waited until they were sure the coast was clear before emerging from behind the tapestry of Gildor the Galvant and racing, quietly, up one flight of stairs to the third floor. Draco led the way to the empty classroom where Hermione was already waiting for them. Draco hugged her tight before letting her go and stepping back to complete the circle of students.
“Alright,” Hermione began, “We know that Quirrell was trying to get into the Snape’s living quarters. We also know that your dad got something from Gringotts before term started. I remembered seeing something in The Daily Prophet about Gringotts when school began so I asked Madam Pince about it yesterday.” She pulled a copied news article out of her pocket. Harry took it from her before passing it to the others.
“Someone broke into Gringotts that same day, just after, looking for something in a vault that had already been emptied. My guess is it’s something your dad took from the bank. I would also guess that whatever that thing was is the reason Quirrell was trying to get into your quarters. It’s probably also what’s keeping students from having access to the corridor on this floor.”
“Okay, so what is the plan?” Draco moved closer to her, returning the newspaper to her. “If my dad is in danger because of whatever he took from Gringotts then how do we help?”
Harry spoke up from his place between Theo and Blaise. “Well, he’s probably on this floor, in the forbidden corridor. I think we should go through the door and find him.”
“If Quirrell has him we’ll need to be ready.” Theo placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder before looking around the circle. “I know a few defensive spells, my mum made me learn them during the holiday. Does anyone else know any defensive spells?” Everyone shook their heads.
“Right then,” Draco straightened his robes. “Here’s the plan. Hermione will unlock the door to the corridor because she’s the best at Alohamora . Harry will I’ll follow after. Theo you’ll provide coverage so keep your wand out. Blaise you and Harry bring up the rear, keep your eyes peeled.” Everyone nodded. “Let’s go.”
Cissa raced from her rooms to Dumbledore’s office. She had been concerned when Severus had been gone for most of the evening but she just assumed he was busy with Minerva. When she reached the griffin statue she drew up short. She didn’t know the password and had no idea if Dumbledore was even in his office. After a moment’s hesitation she drew her wand and called forth her patronus. The crow flew around her head before perching on her shoulder. “Severus is in trouble, Draco has had a vision. I believe Quirrell is behind this. Meet me at on the third floor.” The crow flew off, soaring through the wall, up the stairs, and toward where Dumbledore was waiting.
When the crow was out of sight Cissa turned and made her way for the forbidden corridor. She wouldn’t wait for Dumbledore for very long. The man was prone to letting things unfold before swooping in with his master plan and greater good comments. She wouldn’t risk Severus’ life waiting for Dumbledore to show up. As she crested the landing she witnessed her sons and their friends enter the door to the forbidden corridor. Now there was no way she could wait for backup.
The door to the third floor corridor was unlocked, though she suspected that was not as it always was. The sight that greeted her when she went through the door was unexpected to say the least, though perhaps not surprising knowing Dumbledore’s penchant for dramatics. The three headed dog appeared to have been lulled to sleep with a self-playing harp. How had the children managed that? She swiftly followed their path to the trapdoor near the dogs paw and jumped down.
A spongy material broke her landing but knocked the wind out of her. Her dark hair was coming loose from the tight bun atop her head. A flick of her wand and she caught a glimpse of Devil’s Snare as she was released from its grasp and fell further. A cushioning charm quickly left her lips and she landed on a dirty concrete floor. The chamber she found herself in smelled of mountain troll but there was no great beast to be seen. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing for her children or not. No time to dwell as she rushed on to the doorway left slightly ajar. She could hear a cacophony of voices. Cissa had finally caught up with her children.
Draco and Hermione were working on unlocking another door whilst Harry and Blaise starred in confusion up at the ceiling. Cissa looked up and saw what they were looking at. Glinting flashes of light and the buzzing of wings met her ears. After a moment of puzzling she realized they were-
“Keys!” Harry’s voice tore her gaze away. “They’re keys Draco! I bet the one we need is up there!!” Cissa walked forward revealing herself to the room. “Mum?”
Before Cissa could respond she felt something sharp press into her back. A backward glance revealed young Theo Nott holding his wand on her, ready to release a spell. She could see the moment Theo realised who he was holding at wand point.
“Lady Snape, I’m so sorry.” Theo put his wand down.
“It’s alright Theo, I understand your reaction but perhaps it would be best if you move over with the others.” Theo nodded. “Now, why don’t you explain to me what you’re doing.”
Draco and Hermione step forward together, Cissa notices they are holding hands. “I’m sorry mum but I had a feeling dad was in danger and I couldn’t just wait. They came to help me. Mum we think Quirrell has hurt dad.” Hermione nodded next to him.
Harry and Blaise came forward as well, also holding hands. “We just want to help.”
Cissa took a deep breath. She knew it would be no use continuing on and trusting that they wouldn’t follow so she would just have to do her best to keep them safe and still look for her husband. “Very well,” she pointed to the ceiling, “the key must be up there, we simply need to retrieve it.” Another look around the room revealed a broom leaning against the wall. “Theo, please reclaim your position next to the door with your wand at the ready. Draco and Hermione I want you on either side of the locked door, be ready to open it when you get the key. Blaise and Harry I want you as lookouts watching for the key. One you may need to catch it.”
“Mum?” Harry sounded confused and worried.
“I’m going to get on that broom and catch the key.” All five children looked at her in shock. “Get in position.” They scrambled to do as they were told.
Cissa mounted her broom and slowly floated up from the ground. She needed to know what she was looking for but all of the keys looked the same. She looked back at her son standing next to the door. “Draco, what does the lock look like?”
He frowned but Hermione acted quickly, looking at the lock before calling out. “Old and ornate, silver, and the key will be quite large.”
Cissa looked again at all of the keys. They were moving so quickly she could hardly focus on them.
“There!” Harry called out, she looked to where he was pointing. “The one with the broken wings!!” Cissa squinted and looked closer, finally seeing what he was pointing out. She raced forward, whizzing between the flying keys, her hand stretched out in front of her. Just when she thought the key would fly out of her grasp she closed her hand around it and let out a cry of success.
Joy was short lived when the other keys began turning on her, pelting her back and side painfully. She dove for the ground and threw the key toward the door hoping one of the children would catch it. She flew in an erratic pattern hoping to evade any further damage.
“Mum, it’s open!” She turned her broom and dove towards the door breaking through just before it was slammed closed and battered by the impact of many enchanted keys. Once she landed she spent a moment to really take in her surroundings. The marble floor was checkered in pattern and large statues were surrounded by marble detritus.
“It’s a chess board.” Hermione’s awe filled voice confirmed Narcissa’s suspicions.
“So, what do we do?” Blaise was still holding Harry’s hand and Theo stood close by as well, both serving as bodyguards for her son. “Do we just play?”
Draco was frowning again, thinking hard. “I guess so. We’ll have to replace some of the pieces with ourselves.” He walked the perimeter of the board taking it all in. “Hermione, you be the queen. Blaise and Theo rooks. Harry take the empty knights position. Mum, you replace the other knight.”
They all moved into position as Harry asked, “What about you Draco?”
He smoothed out his robes and took up his position next to Hermione. “I’ll stand in for the king so I can call out moves from a stationary position.”
“We need to be careful dears, this is Wizard’s Chess.”
Once everyone was in position the pieces on the other side stood to attention.
“Pawn to E4.” The white pawn slid forward exposing Draco to attack. Cissa had to trust her son knew what he was doing. She watched in nervous anticipation as a black pawn also slid forward two squares.
“Pawn to F5.” Draco’s pawn crossed to the black pawn, smashing it into jagged shards. The sound of the rumbling impact made all of their teeth rattle and Hermione fought the urge to cry out in fear. Another black pawn moved forward, sliding into the square next to Draco’s pawn.
“Hermione,” the girl looked at her friend, fear overshadowed by determination and courage, she only nodded knowing that Draco was about to send her forward. “I am going to give you a move, can you count the squares? A is to your left going up to H on your right, you’re standing in 1 and the opposite queen is standing in 8. Do you understand?” She nodded again, too afraid to speak and risk losing the game. Draco nodded back and then turned to face their opponents. He called out in a clear voice. “Queen to H5.”
Hermione took a steadying breath as she counted the squares. The move would take her diagonal to the other side of the black pawn. She walked stiffly across the three squares stopping in the center of the fourth and turned to face the opposing queen.
She watched in amazement as the night standing to her far left leapt over the pawn in front of it, executing an L shaped maneuver before stopping in front of a pawn a row in front of her. Instinctively Hermione knew what was next.
“Queen to E8.” When she arrived at the square of the other queen she wasn’t sure what would happen, she didn’t have a weapon and wasn’t sure if she should cast a spell at it. She needn’t worry, the other queen slid off the board and toppled over. Hermione screamed as marble fragments rained down on her, cutting her hands and legs.
Harry moved to check on her but Draco called out to him. “No! Our turn isn’t over. Don’t move!” When Draco saw that everyone understood he called out again. “Checkmate!”
A rumble went through the board and Hermione only just jumped away in time to avoid being cursed by the large king piece toppling over. In a flash Draco and the others had rushed over and Narcissa was waving her wand over Hermione’s cuts healing them.
“Nothing too deep dear, you’ll be quite alright.” Once Hermione was healed and everyone had caught their breath they turned to face the newly opened door that had appeared behind the black chess pieces.
Before they could move forward Draco cried out in pain. Cissa turned to see her son clutching his head, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as Hermione held him up. A few tense moments passed before he straightened up and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Mum I saw dad. He’s in the boathouse with McGonagall. I saw him, he was unconscious. He was bleeding.” Draco was on the verge of tears again.
Cissa was at a loss. How did she move forward when she knew her husband was in danger? Suddenly something occurred to her that perhaps should have before. The house elves that worked for the castle should be able to travel to places warded against wizards magic. What was the name of the elf she had met when they moved in to Hogwarts. She couldn’t seem to remember, her mind was flooded with adrenaline pushing down her ability to think critically. The children were all looking at her anxiously.
“Do any of you know the name of a house elf that works here at the castle?” Silence and then suddenly-
“Mopsy!” Blaise called out excitedly. A beat of silence followed and then a pop was heard just behind the group. Narcissa had never been so happy to see a house elf in her entire life.
“You’s called for Mopsy sir?” The little elf was addressing Blaise who turned to Cissa for help.
“Mopsy,” Cissa cleared her throat, “I need you to tell Dumbledore where we are, and I want you to take these students to the Snape family quarters.” She silenced the children’s protests with a look. “When you’ve done that I need you to tell Madame Pomfrey there are injured professors in the boathouse.”
“Is there anything else Mistress?” Cissa looked around her, “Yes, please go to the boathouse and help the professors there if you are able.” Mopsy nodded and curtsied. The children moved forward to be apparated away but Draco paused.
“Mum, you need to take Harry with you.” She looked him in the eye and saw a depth there that told her he was speaking from a place of knowledge. Cissa nodded and snagged Harry’s hand as he passed. She didn’t say anything and he just waited next to her, holding her hand firmly.
They stood and watched together as the four students and house elf popped out of sight. Hand in hand they made their way through the door. Instantly a wall of fire covered the entrance matching the doorway on the other end of the corridor. There was a table in the room that held seven potion bottles of various size and colour. Harry picked up a scroll laying next to them and read aloud.
“With danger ahead, and safety behind,
Only two are of aid, the others aren’t kind.
One for moving forward, one for going back,
Two hold a wine which flavour it does lack,
Three of us, I warn, will not help you at all,
Those three will kill you sure as night does fall.
No other way to go but to make a choice,
Assistance we offer, choose wisely and rejoice:
To begin you must know that no matter where you stand,
Death lays surely to the wines left hand;
Second it is true that either end are different,
But should you wish to go forwards, both are insignificant;
Again you’ll look and see an array of many shapes and size,
If poison you seek then both largest and smallest will never be your prize;
Lastly, fraternal twins lay one within on either of your sides,
Though different they appear, when once you taste it cannot be denied.”
“I don’t understand mum, what does it mean?”
“It means we have to figure out which of these potions will allow us to go through the door to move forward. Let’s take a look at the potions and make some eliminations.”
The seven potion bottles were arranged from left to right in no particular size order. A medium sized obsidian coloured potion bottle was at the far end, to its right was a ruby coloured potion bottle that was half-again its size. A tiny clear vial that contained a milky liquid was next and was practically dwarfed on either side for to its right was another medium sized potion bottle, this time one made of glass. A nearly identical potion bottle sat next to that one but with an emerald encrusted stopper instead of cork. The last two could not have been more different. A large pewter bottle with a matching stopper eclipsed the tiny silver flask-like bottle at the far right end.
Narcissa looked to the scroll again and thought of eliminating the potions they wouldn’t need. Especially the poison.
“If poison is to the left of the wine then the potion on the far right cannot be poison.” She pointed to the small silver flask. “Both ends are unable to send up forward so we’ll ignore both of those. Poison isn’t in the largest or smallest bottles so only the medium sized bottles have poison.” Harry moved forward and pushed the three medium sized bottles back a few centimeters.
“Mum, if poison is always to the left of wine and the three potions bottles are poison then that means that two of the remaining are wine. And they’d have to be to the right of the medium ones.” Harry pointed to the two large potion bottles that had once stood to the very right of the three poisons. Harry pushed them back as well. That left only two potion bottles in their original positions.
Cissa read the riddle once again. “It says that the potions on the end won’t send us forward. That bottle,” she pointed to the small one on the end, “won’t send us forward. Which only leaves this one.” It was the small clear vial with milky liquid. Cissa picked it up and looked closely. There was only enough for one person. Cissa tried to duplicate it with a gemini spell but to no avail. Cissa wanted with all of her heart to send Harry back with the other potions but Draco’s distant look echoed in her mind.
“Mopsy.” Narcissa’s voice shook as she called for the house elf once again. The pop came expectantly and Cissa let out a sigh of relief.
“You’s called Mistress.”
“Mopsy, please tell me you were able to help the others in the boathouse.”
“Yes Mistress, I’s taked them to the Madame and she healed them up nicely. Are you’s be wanting me to take you out of here Mistress?”
“No Mopsy, I’m going to be sending Harry through that door over there.” She nodded to the doorway forward. “I want to know if you can transport me into that room as well.”
Mopsy’s face wrinkled in consternation. She must have been thinking very deeply as she attempted to discern the viability of Cissa’s request. “It be very hard Mistress. I be needing time to go through the magics.”
“Very well Mopsy. As soon as Harry is through the door I want you to take me.”
Mopsy nodded vigorously. “Yes Mistress.”
Cissa knelt in front of her son and grasped his hands. They held the vial together and clung to each other. “Harry, you’re going to drink this and walk through. I’ll be right there my darling. Just wait for me on the other side.” Cissa watched as Harry carefully drank the contents of the vial and walked through the fire with his eyes tightly shut.
Mopsy placed her gnarled hand on Cissa’s shoulder and suddenly she felt the pull of apparation just behind her navel.
Harry opened his eyes and took in the last chamber. It had rough stone floors and matching walls, no windows or doors in sight, and in the center, down a few steps, was a giant mirror. This was not what Harry was expecting, though he wasn’t what that could be, it certainly wasn’t a large gilded mirror. There was fancy writing at that top, though Harry couldn’t understand whatever language it was.
“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.”
It looked like Latin, a language he was only kind of familiar with because most spells were in Latin. Only, these words were nothing like any he’d seen before. “Erised stra…?” Harry tried reading out loud hoping it might make more sense when heard.
“No use in reciting that boy.” Harry jerked back surprised to see Professor Quirrell emerge from behind the mirror. “It doesn’t do anything to bring forth the stone.”
The stone? Harry had no idea what Quirrell was talking about. He moved further back as Quirrell stood in front of the mirror, dead center. Harry felt a sharp stab of pain to his scar and grabbed his forehead to abate it.
“I don’t understand, I can see myself holding the stone but I don’t know how to get it!” Quirrell was becoming unhinged, Harry was afraid what he would do to him. Quirrell was walking around the mirror once again leaving Harry with an unobstructed view of the mirror. The pain in his head went with him. When Harry looked at himself he was surprised to see his reflection moving on its own. He watched in rapt fascination as his doppelganger reached into his pocket and pulled out a large stone, the colour of a ruby, and then replaced it. Quirrell was making his way back around the mirror and Harry saw his reflection put his finger to his lips and wink.
Harry could feel a weight in his pocket where there wasn’t one before. Quirrell was muttering to himself but Harry couldn’t make out what he was saying, he was distracted once again by pain. What was Quirrell doing to him? Just when it felt like it would be too much Quirrell whirled around and glared at him.
“You! You must have it!”
A strange voice sounded from behind Quirrell as well. “Kill the boy Quirrell and claim the stone!”
Was the mirror talking? Harry didn’t have time to process this because suddenly Quirrell was rushing toward him, hands around his throat. The smell of brimstone caused Harry’s nose to twitch and burn, his mind began to muddle and darken as air ceased to reach his brain. The sound of Quirrell screaming was a distant sound in his mind, he heard a woman cry out his name and saw a green flash of light behind his eyes. His body began to go limp and a pop sounded in the space between his ears. It shook him awake just enough to open his eyes and see Quirrell’s disfigured face turn into ash. Then darkness took him and Harry fell back into a pair of waiting arms.
The infirmary was perhaps Harry’s least favourite place in the castle. The smells of medicinal potions gave him a headache, which seemed counter productive to Harry. The bright light of morning slanted through the windows casting patterns on the bedspreads. Harry squinted his eyes open and lolled his head to the right. His mum was sitting next to his bed, his hand tight in her grasp. His dad was laying in the bed behind her, Draco sitting on the side of the bed looking exhausted. His mum saw that he was awake and called for Madame Pomfrey.
The matron appeared almost instantly and smiled down at Harry. “You’re lucky your mum was there to catch you young man or you were likely to have a head injury. A little bed rest and you’ll be right as rain.”
Harry spent the rest of the day in bed before returning to classes the next day. His dad and the other professors were also released though Cissa assisted Severus in his lessons for the remainder of term. When the House Cup feast arrived Harry was very excited. Slytherin was ahead in points by a large margin with Ravenclaw just behind. The tables were heavy with delicious smelling foods and everyone was in celebratory moods, especially the Slytherins.
As he and Draco boarded the carriages leading to the train he took a moment to look back on the castle. He’d never experienced anything like what he’d experienced there and was already looking forward to next term. Though, and Harry was happy to admit, having a home and family to return to was far better.