Chapter Text
It's been a year and a half since the end of the war. The rounding up and trying of Death Eaters was taking longer than it had after the first time. This was so that nothing like last time happened. Investigations were more thorough this time around. No one would be sent to Askaban wrongly and no one would be let free who deserved to be there. Also the Ministry was not as trusted as it had been before the war, so this responsibility fell to the Order of the Phoenix. And the Death Eaters were not going down without a fight. Some Death Eaters went into hiding, some started fights, there hasn't been more than a fortnight to go by without someone being attacked. Very few of them went easily or, even rarer, willingly. But at least they had the Aurors to help with that part.
Considering the amount of work the Order had to do Harry, Hermione, and Ron decided to put aside the career paths for now and help with cleaning up after the War. They helped rebuild Hogwarts along with many others. They helped hunt Death Eaters down and Harry and Hermione did there best to make the trials just and fair. Many of the young ones who joined by the end and where really just being loyal to there family were given very light charges, things like public apologies, community service, the most sever would be a short time in Azkaban. Those who had been with Voldemort from the start had been given some of the worse i.e. life in Azkaban. The Trio now had a lot of pull in the Wizerding world so there disitions were usually respected. Further, the Order was now more known to the public, no one knew exactly who was in it but they knew the part the played in the war and that the Golden Trio was the face of it. The outcome of the trials went well.
The Order's headquarters was back to being located at 12 Grimmauld Place and was now where Harry took up residency. There was plenty of room for the trials to take place, meetings to go on, and people to live.
While rebuilding hogwarts something in the basement neer snapes old courters seemed off. Snape had set a locking charm on his quarters. When they finally got in there was a repelent charm on the center of the room, with further investigations a hidden room was found underneath the floor that contained a working area and tons of research for many different things.
After finding Severus hide out there was some debate about what to do with it. A meeting was even held on it but that lead no where. Some wanted it to be left as it was. Some wanted this out of respect for him realizing he probably wouldn't like people riffling through his stuff, others, i.e Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, wanted this out of fear of him. Others thought they should look through it all it could be helpful, or to move it into storage. Their was one idea that was considered to even make it into a museum but that was shot down. In the end it was decided to catalogue it all the leave it as it was. But that was put on a back burner as more Death Eater shot up and started riots so a preservation charm put on it and reset up all of the old protection and hiding spells that made it hard for us to find it. Everyone thought it was no big deal. Six months later it turns out
they were wrong.
"YOU FILTHY MUDBLOOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE? CAME TO BRING MORE FILTH IN TO MY HOUSE, DID YOU? JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE THAT COMES THROUGH THAT DOOR? THIS USE TO BE THE GREAT HOUSE OF THE BLACK. NOW LOOK WHERE IT HAS FALLEN"
Harry groggily races down stares to see someone in a hooded cloak trying to quite the portrait. He almost regrets not bringing his wand in his hurry, before he noticed the curly locks spilling out from underneath the hood.
"Hermione?!" Harry shouts over the noise.
She jumps and her head wips around to look at him
"Oh! Harry!" her exspretion goes from surprised to relieved, "I'm sorry. I forgot. I was in such a hurry!"
As she says this Harry hops off the last few steps and rushes over to quite the portrait as it goes on in on about 'a half blood inheriting' her house because of her 'good for nothing son.'
Together they mange to quite her and together they pull the curtains close.
They go down the hallway that leads to the kitchen. The hall hasn't had much of a change since that summer before fifth year. Some other parts of the house had been renovated, like the kitchen or some of the bedrooms, but this hall is still as dark and dingy as ever. Harry just can't find the time to finish the rest. He hopes that once the post war recession ends he will be able to make the place more of a home.
As they enter the kitchen harry summons kreacher.
Kreacher bows deep, "What would Master Harry like Kreacher to do?"
"Make a pot of tea please."
Kreacher nods and sets to it.
Harry leads Hermione to the dining room to sit down. Hermione takes off her cloak and hangs it up.
Over the tea Harry breaks the silence by asking why Hermione was here so early.
"Oh!" Hermione shakes her head remembering why she came, "Snape's hide out, it was broken into. I felt the alarm set off so I woke up Ron then we flooed to hogwarts and told McGonagall. No one was there when we arrived "
"How'd they get in? Was anything stolen?"
"We don't know how or if something was stolen it was such a mess, papers everywhere, things throne about. I left Ron's there so he could start to checking if anythings missing."
"Do you guys know who it was?"
"It might have been anyone, Harry! McGonagall said it could have been one of the kids but I don't think we'd be that lucky."
"I hope it was only a kid. What if it was a death eater? What could they've been after? Was there anything worth stealing?"
"Oh Harry, there was a lot of dangerous things in there. I would know; The Jackson girl, you know, one of the voluntaries, and I had cataloged it all. We won't know how much trouble we are in until we know who did it."
"Okay then, we'll head over as soon as we are done here to look for clues and help Ron figure out what's missing"
"Okay, you go get dressed and I'll call ahead to get the floo ready."
Harry nods and starts to leave the room when a wisp of silver flies in then wips around the room and lands before Hermione and Harry. Ron's Patronus sits in front of them as Ron's voice comes out.
'Someone was still inside and I think he sent for back up. You can just apparate in. Come quick!'
Quicker than it came the Jack Russell Terrier disappears.
"Accio wand," Harry shouts.
Harry grabs it out of the air as it flys toward him.
Harry nods a Hermione.
They dissapparate ready to fight.
They appear in the center of the room to their right Ron is at the entrance trying to keep three masked figures out, while in the back of the room there was boy, who may be old enough to be in 5th year, frantically riffling through the papers.
Harry shoots a look at Hermione she shakes her head that she doesn't know and motions to go help Ron
They move to Ron, who's shooting stunners.
"Ron," Harry whispers, " who's the kid?"
"Who?" he turns his head to look at Harry causing him to get hit by a curse "Oh him–shit– he's the one who broke in."
"So you just left him?" Harry asks in disbelief
"He didn't really seem like the biggest threat at the time, Harry"
After they realize they are outnumbered they start to retreat from the door way and up the stairs. The trio follows both groups fighting the whole way. The Trio is able to get them out into the hall way.
"McGonagall is on her way with the Aurors" Hermione shouted from the far side of the hall.
That caused Ron to turn his head so he was able to ketch a glimpse of the kid, sneaking out. He looks around to see if anyone is free to go after him. He notices Harry who just stunned and bound the masked man he was fighting.
"Harry! the kid!"
Harry whips around and sees the kid with hand full of papers running from Snape's old quarters.
Harry races over to him.
"Stop," he calls but the kid keeps running, but he's a child so it isn't long before Harry is able to ketch up to him.
Harry reaches out and grabs the kids arm pulling him to a stop. The kid looks frightened, Harry is reminded of Draco Malfoy the time in the bath room, he had the same look, perhaps they have similar situation he thinks. This though causes him to be more gentle, "Listen we don't have to do this just calm down we can work something out. I won't hurt you just let go of the papers."
The boy looks skeptical but slowly starts to relax.
Crash "Napius go!" Boomed one of the masked people.
The boy, Napius, starts to pull on his wrist trying to get away, this draws Harry's attention back to him.
Panicked the boy looks around for something to make Harry let go. He pulls out his wand and sends a stinging hex at Harry's arm. Harry let's go but before Napius is able to escape Harry grabs the paper, it almost rips with them both pulling on it.
Napius looks at the paper, his lips are forming words... like he's reading something of the paper.
Harry ketches this and looks too.
It's a spell
"Stupiff–" Harry's cut off from casting when he gets hit in the back with confringo. Harry falls foreword gasping in pain but he doesn't hit the ground because well that happened Napius was casting the spell he read off the paper. He started out whispering but ended in a shout. "Mutare Praeterita Frangere Tempus"
A yellow light shot from his wand and it felt almost like sand. When some stray light hit the ground it sounded like broken glass hitting the floor. When the light hit him, Harry was sent flying backwards through the air. It seemed like everything was in slow motion, maybe everything was. It hurt and Harry felt like his clothes where getting really big or… or maybe he was shrinking.
As he flue through the air he thought he saw his friends start to disappear.
He landed right in front of the door of Snape's quarters with a loud thud. The yellow light disappeared the same time he hit the floor. In his hand he could feel the torn pages of what that boy was holding wondering what they were but it was too painful to move.
Harry lay on the ground feeling small cold and in pain. he hears a door click open to his left
Before he passes out he sees a face... a familiar face, leaning over him and felt someone picking him up.
It was… Snape