Snakes, Cats, and Ladders

A frigid breeze swept across the street, carrying with it the last few decomposing leaves of winter. Grimmauld Square's sparse trees were bare, their tall branches casting shadows over the grass.

Fog hung across the houses' rooves; not thick enough to obscure them, but enough to wash out the colour. Number 12's dark slates appeared pale, further lightened by the sun's rays across their damp surface.

It smelled of rain and dew, but not in a way that was comforting or familiar. The scent was more overpoweringly earthy, as if one had scooped up a handful of wet dirt and held it beneath their nose for too long.

Harry grimaced, having stepped into a deceptively deep puddle as he was taking his invisibility cloak off. Rainwater seeped into the tops of his socks.

A squelching sound accompanied each step up towards Number 12's door. He looked down to examine his muddy boots as he ascended, half regretting his recent decision to forego magic outside unless strictly necessary.

The door clicked open gently after he knocked, revealing Daphne's pale face. She looked better now, having recovered from her injury and their swim in the Black Lake, but she still had a drawn appearance.

Her face lit up upon seeing him and the two bags in his hand, and that made his trip all the more worthwhile.

"Did you go to the bakery?" she asked eagerly.

"I did," Harry confirmed, stepping inside. "I brought some pastries back for you and Tracey."

Daphne made an excited sound and hugged him, taking the bag out of his loose grip as she withdrew.

"Ahhh," she sighed as she opened it and inhaled. "They smell so good. I'll go tell Tracey."

She darted off, past the blank space where Walburga's portrait used to hang. Harry closed the door behind him.

He hated the dense atmosphere of the house. It seemed to thicken by the week, and all they had to briefly escape it was a small patch of lawn out the back. Thankfully, it was still within the wards, however, it lacked the protections of the building itself. He suspected that the girls might spend the whole day out there otherwise.

The flowers that he'd bought last week were drooping in their vase, well on their way to wilting. Harry reminded himself to buy a new bouquet the next time he went out.

He was about to set his remaining bag of groceries down on the counter when a piece of parchment caught his eye. His head throbbed at seeing the slip of parchment tucked underneath the vase.

The thought of more bad news made him hesitate, but he felt drawn to it. Had one of the girls left it there, but not told him about it?

Harry slid it out from underneath the vase and unfolded it with both hands, eager to put his mind at ease.

Minister Fudge issued the following statement yesterday at a press conference, following the alleged events that took place at Britain's premier magical school.

"Harry Potter will be brought to justice. Our top Aurors are leading the investigation as I speak-"

"Harry? What's that?"

He looked up as Daphne came back down the stairs and into the kitchen, her blonde hair swishing behind her.

"I think it's a clipping from the Daily Prophet, just after we left Hogwarts," he replied.

As he glanced back down, the parchment was bare. Then, an inky mark blossomed out from the middle of the page, filled with crimson.

Images filled his mind. He saw a grey manor on a hill, tainting the grass it sat upon, washing the purity out of the clouds, and angering the wind. A stinging sensation emanated from his scar, immediately replaced by a vision of a dimly lit hall with tall windows, the only purpose of its high ceilings being the mounting of heavy chandeliers. The table below him was glossy and dark and looked like it should belong to royalty rather than rest in such a gloomy place.

He gripped the arms of his chair tightly, the joints in his ivory knuckles cracking as he contracted them.

Potter, he spoke to himself. The missing piece.

His soul was fractured beyond any repair. He could no longer feel his Hocruxes. The sacrifice of Black had shattered the link, and the curse had rebounded, just as it had all those years ago, and struck Pettigrew. His plan went up in flames. The boy had survived the tournament. Black was dead.

The boy couldn't know. He'd escaped just as Black had taken the curse. As a result, there was only one option to regain his immortality.

So long as the boy walked the earth, he couldn't die, but his fate lay in the hands of an idiotic child.

He needed to take not the body, but the soul. He needed to conquer it. To make it his own, and to renew his Horcruxes. He needed a means to get to the boy who owned it, as the final Horcrux embedded within would keep him alive. It could be no other. He needed to rip it free and replace it with the tatters of his own. The disgusting, wrinkly creature that he'd tested the waters with had at least done its job. As much as he'd wanted to splatter it against the wall, he couldn't. Yet.

It allowed him to slip the letter through the wards.

The blonde girl stared at him, dumbfounded. She couldn't rip the parchment out of his hands, of course. It was bound to him and the boy only. If she did manage to join him, he'd kill her on the spot.

Greengrass. What a waste of pure blood.

Panic surged. He tried to drop the letter, to call Daphne's name, or to push back.

No, everything was okay. It would soon be over.

Something tugged, and he felt himself freefalling. Air rushed in his ears, cool and violent.

He felt no sympathy for those who opposed him. Rather, it brought him joy to tear their lives apart, piece by piece. He missed the days where things were simple, where he only needed to remind himself of his next class, or making his godfather proud.

Black was a waste to his family. So much potential, such pure heritage, all wasted by them. That was the most heinous crime of all. The fact that the boy was involved too…

He scraped dry stone somewhere. Dust rose and clogged his airways.

The walls were Black. The roof was Black. He could only see Black.

Black?

Sirius Black. That had been his…

How unfortunate.

There was nothing for him to do here. He didn't belong. Cool metal came into contact with his shoulder.

Bars, Harry. Like in muggle prisons.

He was in jail?

Would you prefer a cupboard instead?

No, please no. He didn't want that.

Pity.

The walls were white plaster, dimly illuminated by a cracked lightbulb hanging above. They closed in on him steadily, until he could not sit up straight. He tried to scream, but there was no sound. He was frozen in place.

Time passed slowly. Was he dreaming?

Would that change anything?

He was anxious. His heart was pounding. His head ached as if someone had split it open down the middle. There was someone else nearby, but he didn't know where.

So close.

The scene didn't change for what felt like hours. His arms went through the walls, encountering no resistance. He put his head through the ceiling and saw nothing. The ache in his head persisted, its intensity fluctuating unpredictably, like waves in a storm.

Another memory came forth. Their walk through Rome, quiet and peaceful. Then Sicily, comforting and warm. Salty water lingering on his skin, tangling his hair, the sunshine setting golden tresses alight.

Clouds of orange and pink and purple, the setting sun casting his shadow across wet rocks.

Then came the pain. It didn't let up or change as the other sensations had. It remained, shocking him with each blow.

Robed figures knelt before him, their heads bowed. He spoke quietly, but forcefully.

A flash of red, then green to finish the job. Hostile, evil, murderous intent fuelled his actions.

Eventually, his mind blanked entirely. Everything was black and invisible, but tangible. He could feel the stones beneath him cutting into his skin. It was cold. He was wet and sticky. It hurt.

But he could feel it. There was no other coherence.

Something touched his face, and he flinched.

"Harry," the darkness whispered. "Harry."

The voice was one of sorrow and ache. Was it real?

"Please," it cried quietly, "talk to me."

Something dripped onto his cheek. He attempted to speak, but his mouth was dry and his throat raw. It wouldn't open either.

Another touch. This one felt familiar, doing its best to bring forth some long-lost memory. The warmth trailed across his forehead and through his hair, grazing his scalp and lightly forcing its way through any obstructions it encountered.

A sigh escaped him, and he relaxed for what felt like the first time in years.

He could feel it on his chin and his neck. It soothed him, like the sea breeze in his lungs or the evening sun in his eyes. The blue, like the ocean. Calm and beautiful. He wished to swim through it, to uncover what lay at the end, and he'd be content to do so until he drew his final breath.

The tension in his body faded with each touch, and soon he was struggling to keep his eyes open. He stared straight through her at the roof until he drifted off. It was the spark of recognition at the very end that she clung to as her shaky hands raised the hood of Harry's cloak once more.

Daphne breathed in deeply to calm herself once more, despite the impossible situation she found herself in. It was what Harry would do. The events of the past hour, or hours, ran through her head, and she tried to sift through them slowly.

The cursed parchment; she'd not seen it until Harry had picked it up off the table. She'd watched him read it until he froze. He didn't respond to her words, her summoning charm failed, and then when she'd dropped her wand and tried to pry it out of his grip, it'd burned her.

A wooshing sensation was all the warning she'd received, and out of instinct, Daphne had grabbed onto his arm.

Harry had started to thrash around after they'd been whirled around and dumped on hard ground elsewhere. Amidst his movements, she had seen his invisibility cloak fall out of his pocket and pile onto the floor.

The walls, which were barely visible in the low light, were mortar and stone. Solid bars with barely a gap large enough to peer through ran from floor to ceiling on the far side.

Nothing had worked to calm Harry. He'd struck her by accident twice before Daphne heard footsteps, and she'd thrown the cloak over herself, reaching for her wand instead.

Her blood ran cold as she'd patted her trouser pocket.

Then they'd come, and she'd gotten her first glimpse of Lord Voldemort.

His pale skin stretched unnaturally over his prominent cheekbones as he smiled, giving him a truly monstrous appearance. The eyes were sunken into their dark sockets, bridged by a flat plane of skin with two slits where his nose should have been.

The hellish eyes; red pupils, like those belonging to a serpent, stared through her. For a moment, she thought she'd been detected, but then he glanced down at Harry, and his features stretched into an expression of unadulterated glee. The dark sockets, bridged by a flat plane of skin, lit up like lanterns.

There was nothing she could do but watch like one of Voldemort's own, curled up in the corner of the cell with tears streaming down her face.

Once it was over, she'd stayed where she was, attempting to collect herself.

Harry had been by her side for everything. Her rock. He'd saved her from a life not worth living, his presence lighting a flame within her that had quickly become a roaring fire. It was her turn to do what she could, even if she had absolutely nothing.

If there was a single thing his appearance in her life had taught her, it was that there was always hope, and one should never forfeit while there was still a chance. It may be the faintest, slimmest chance possible, but it was still worth fighting for.

Daphne had swallowed back her fear, wiped her eyes clear, and set her focus entirely on Harry.

He was too big to fit under the cloak with her, so she had taken the hood off and tried to calm him. Judging by his empty stare, he'd had his mind ransacked by the Dark Lord, who'd only left as he didn't seem to get what he was after and didn't want to risk completely obliterating Harry's mind just yet.

One of the Death Eaters — inner circle, she'd guessed — standing behind him had timidly warned against it.

It was the spark of recognition at the very end that she clung to…

She breathed out slowly. As always, there was hope. No one knew she was here yet. She didn't have many cards, but she needed to play what she was dealt. She had to win.

For him. For them.