"Hurry up," Snape barked at the rattled Third Years, and sneered just a bit when Marsters jumped and nearly upended a beaker. Snape was running late -- or rather, the idiots were: McGonagall had given him leave to go to London the minute the day's classes were over, which was now. He didn't mind admitting to himself that he was impatient to leave....

Anxious, rather. No need for impatience, is there? It wasn't as if he were impatient to be traipsing about hunting a potentially dangerous former student and his exceedingly dangerous minder.

Or impatient to see Hermione, for that matter.

So, anxious, and more than a bit excited because Hermione had seemed so excited herself.

All the blasted idiots had cleared from the classroom, now, except for Marsters, who was slowly polishing the damned beaker dry. Far too slowly.

"Why the delay, Marsters?" he growled. "I distinctly recall telling you there would be no advance on the pocket-money, if that's what you're angling for."

"No, sir," Marsters said a bit unsteadily. "I only wuh- wondered if.... I wondered if Muh - Madam Snape would be visiting in a fortnight."

"I don't see," Snape said deliberately, "why that should be your business at all."

The boy's face reddened.

"Wanted to... sh- show her something, that's all," he mumbled. "Duh- didn't muh- mean to pruh- pry."

"Oh. Your progress with the Third Arithmantic Operation, I assume.... She should be here, I believe." Had bloody well better be, considering how many times I've gone off Grounds during Term for her.

"Good," Marsters said quietly, placed the beaker amongst the cleaned instruments, and slipped from the room with a "Thank you, sir."

In the end, though, the motivations of one challenged Third Year were beneath Snape's dignity to take much notice of; and so he made a final check of classroom, office, and his private rooms, and then strode off to the gates and Apparated to London.

*****

Fortunately he popped into the hallway, just inside the front door, and froze when he heard a startled male voice with a thick Scots burr saying, "Wha' was that?"

After a pause Hermione muttered, "Popped a fuse, perhaps? The porch-light does that occasionally -- the wiring's a bit wonky. I'll just go check."

"Oh, I'm grrreht wi' fuses and electricity -- I'll have a wee look for ye --"

"No, no, quite all right, I'm used to it, thanks."

Hermione scrambled out to the hall, grabbed her handbag off the table, and shoved Snape toward the front door with her elbow while she rummaged in the bag.

"Pop outside," she mouthed, and glared at him. "Use the key." And she shoved her key-ring into his hand.

"Later. Muggle clothes," she shot back, and busied herself with opening the cupboard and making noise, shoving things about.

Snape ill-temperedly dropped the ward and popped out to the mews; glamoured himself a more Muggle-ish style of dress; walked to the front door, fumbling with the unfamiliar keys until he found the right one; and let himself in over the murmur of voices. He wasn't pleased with what he saw: Hermione was head-and-shoulders in the cupboard fumbling with something, and her male visitor was hanging back at the entrance to the sitting-room, admiring what must be a nice view of her arse.

"Thought I haird another one goe. Are ye sairtain --" the earnest and obviously randy Muggle bastard -- who rather looked like a miniature version of Hagrid, with slightly less hair -- was saying.

He stopped dead when he got a good look at Snape's face.

Hermione backed out of the cupboard and stuck her head around the door.

"Steven!"

"Steven, this is Kiltman --"

"Kiltman?" Snape muttered involuntarily, and managed not to demand of Hermione, And you think 'Severus' is odd?.

"Rory," the Muggle admitted sheepishly. "Kiltman's just my handle for exploring, my mates gave it me."

"And this is my husband, Steven. Rory's going to help us get in," she brightly informed Snape, and gave him a 'Don't look at me like that, I'll explain later' look.

Rory looked quite embarrassed, knowing he'd been caught ogling another man's wife's bum, but he gamely held out his hand for a shake.

"Guid to meet ye. Hermione's bin tellin' me aboot yer cousin -- wha' shitty luck. Are you sairtain ye want tae tackle him alone, though? Cane Hill's a dangerous place to deal wi' someone a wee bit, erm, unbalanced."

Snape chose the only sensible option available: when faced with a backstory that one didn't have details for, one kept one's cakehole shut.

"Steven's the only one he'll respond to," Hermione said quickly, and tugged Snape's coat from his shoulders. "He's always very calm with Steven. He'd be quite upset with strangers, especially medical workers or police. If we can't find him or coax him out, we'll notify the authorities then."

"All right," Rory said, shaking his head. "I'm not goin' to guarantee yer safety, not at night -- it's bad enough in the daytime. Ye'll have tae watch yer step."

"Let's go have a look, shall we?" Hermione said, and ushered them both into the sitting-room. "Steven's been out of town, and I haven't even had a chance to tell him about the place."

Snape managed a glare at her while Rory's back was turned, and took his place on the settee, in front of the low table that the man had strewn with maps -- quite an impressive spread of maps, actually: Snape was surprised and gratified, and grudgingly admitted to himself that the Know-It-All had outdone herself this time.

"Amazed ye haven't heard of Cane Hill," Rory was nattering on. (He was, apparently, not the average dour Scot, much to Snape's displeasure. He hated chatterers.) "It's bin in the news every six months for the last decade, until recently."

"Moved away when I was young," Snape muttered. "Don't have much memory of London, actually."

"We met in Scotland," Hermione volunteered. "Long-distance for now, until Steven, erm, finds work down here."

"Oh. But yoor cousin's from London?"

"His parents stayed here," Hermione said quickly. "But they both died a couple of years ago, and he's been on his own since. He was treated at Cane Hill when he was a teenager --"

"-- and when we saw the Coulsdon mark on the post-card, we thought perhaps he'd gone back there. We couldn't find him registered at any shelters, so it's worth a try."

"Huh. He'll be living rough if he's thair -- the electricity's bin off for a long time," Rory said, and pulled a scale map out from under the stack. "Won't bore you wi' the history, Steve --" (Snape winced) "-- except that the place's bin closed since ninety-one. First trip I made was in ought-three, my last trip in ought-sex -- got run in by Security, finally," he admitted cheerfully, "which is why I'll get you on the grounds, but dinna dare go wi' ye. They charge you wi' suspected arson now, ye see -- I dinna want that on my record. We'll go down the A-twenty-three," he said, and illustrated on the map with a grubby fore-finger, "and we'll conveniently have car trouble and have tae pull off here, ontae Portnall's Road. Ye'll have tae cut across this field, and ye'll run up against a bluidy great security fence just after ye join up wi' the footpath."

He scrabbled for another map in smaller scale, and spread it diagonally across the table so Hermione and Snape could see it properly: a sprawling mass of buildings seemed to radiate, horseshoe-fashion, from a central block. It seemed faintly familiar to Snape, though he'd never heard of the place and couldn't imagine why it should seem so.

"That's about where ye'll come through the fence," Rory said, marking a spot on the perimetre with his finger. "At least my mate says so, he was in a few months ago. They may have sealed it up by now, in which case ye're probably not goin' tae make it in...."

However, Snape wasn't paying attention to Rory: he was reading the legend at top centre of the map, which declared that the place had been built in 1883....

Asylum? A lunatic asy-? Oh... ...bloody...

Nothing in his past experience of doing unsavoury jobs and mucking about in nasty places had quite prepared him for this. His excuse of the press of the war for not visiting Mother -- and the myriad reasons he'd come up with since its end -- were not strictly accurate. He hated the institution in Nottinghamshire, true, but not solely because it was inconvenient for travel, and difficult to see her in that state....

He knew it was likely that he had inherited more than his father's looks and vicious nature. In the back of his mind he was well aware that what he'd got from Mother might be that same, high-strung temperament that had made her incapable of dealing with Julius Snape's abuses without going completely and irretrievably mad; that he might, in fact, end up in the madhouse himself someday, though one would think if the war hadn't done it, nothing could.

*****

Hermione didn't know, obviously. She couldn't, or he didn't imagine she'd have sprung this on him -- not for the sake of concealing any illicit knowledge: that Gryffindor sense of honour would have led her to 'fess up. She didn't notice his unease at the moment, either. She was avidly listening to the bloody Scotsman.

"...sending ye in the back way, because wha' little bluidy security they have's up by the main access road. They used tae be in the Admin Building, but then they moved out and the place got torched right awhey --"

"So which buildings," Hermione interrupted, "are absolute non-starters?"

"Main Hall's gone, one of the first," Rory said, and crossed it off the map with an odd, smelly pen that Hermione handed over to him. "And the Admin block's gone too, not that he'd risk being seen from the main road -- that went in bits and pieces. A bluidy shame, because that was one of the better-presairved. My mate says the facade's crumbling on its own, now. The Laundry and service areas are flattened -- so, really, the whole of the central services buildings except the chapel are out. A lot of the corridors close tae them are either gone as well, or too dangerous tae go intae."

"How dangerous?"

"How aboot no floors?" Rory said, bushy eyebrows rising. "It's always dicey -- like walking on a trampoline, some of them -- but the floors often go before the roofs themselves. That's why the bluidy powers that be have given up on the place. It's too damned dangerous tae send fire-fighters in, so they just spray the outside down and hope for the best."

"Why bother to do even that?" Hermione said, and Snape suppressed a grimace at the tangent: he wanted this over with.

"Listed as Grade Two landmarks," Rory explained. "They have tae give the appearance of giving a damn, but the place is a huge white elephant as it couldn't be flattened outright. Thaire've been plans for re-use, but they always fell through -- housing, a business park, a medium-security mental unit -- that one rrreally got the Nimbys' knickers in a twist --"

"Nimbys?" Snape muttered involuntarily.

"The 'Not in my back yard' lot," Rory said. "It was meant tae be a rehab centre for sex offenders. Anywhey, the wrangling went on for so long and the strictures against demolition are so tight that all the developers gave up. Easier tae let the bluidy arsonists do their job first, and then bulldoze the mess and start over with new-built. Thair's not a single undamaged building left."

"Well, where should we look, then?" Hermione said. "If Security's out front, I don't imagine he's in one of those wards, east or west."

"Dinna think so, they'd investigate any lights or movement. Rrrossetti's in pretty good shape, though, and if he stayed on the north side they might not see...."

Hermione stabbed her finger at a building up at the front and explained to Snape, "Each building has at least two floors, and they're named for famous Victorians -- each floor is its own ward. Rossetti is...."

"It's ground floor, yes," Rory confirmed.

"While Ruskin ward is the first floor."

"And thair's a lot of buildings in the back that he probably wouldn't attempt. They were shut down airlier, and as the footpath runs pretty close tae them, they got vandalised first.... Nurses' housing is gone, no floors at all on any story," Rory said, and crossed it out. "Kings, Hill, Hogarth, and Johnson are bluidy messes, and I'd be surprised if the walls are still standing. Liggett and Lettsom went up in the last big arson attack.... I've haird York's a mess, but never bin myself. Mapother's pretty sheltered, though, and ye can't see it at all from the front or the footpath. All these," he continued, madly x-ing buildings off the map, "are lost causes. So are these outbuildings."

"What about this?" Snape asked, and pointed to one that the man had skipped over.

Rory hesitated. "That's Vincent-Vanbrugh. Johnny -- that's my mate -- dinna go in there tae see what was left. We never liked to, generally. Difficult tae get in as it's on an embankment, and the first and second stories were torched a while ago. For a long time everyone thought the floors on the ground had gone too, and then we found they hadn't... and odd things happen in that building."

"How odd, precisely?" Snape asked sharply.

"Oh, just.... It's more than just the usual funny sounds and things. It's crrreepy, rrreally creepy." He blurted out a nervous giggle. "I mean, we're not the most unimaginative bunch, especially where Cane Hill is consairned. Some people claim they've photographed weird orbs and streaky things in the chapel, for instance. We're always jumpy, listening for Security or the homeless whackos that.... Sorry, but some of them are pretty wild, you see.... Vincent-Vanbrugh's just bluidy scairy, and the few people who've managed tae get in have got hurt, so most of us steer clear. I dinna think anyone's tackled that building for years, now."

Hermione shot a none-too-subtle glance at Snape, which he refused to return.

"And this one?" Snape asked, of a little outbuilding toward the back of the property.

"That's, erm.... Oh, right. That's the Gatehouse and Mortuary, I think. That's a good possibility even though it's near the footpath, because it's overgrown but still sound, at least when I toured it. Amazing considering that it hadn't been heated for years and years, but then it was built tae withstand damp and cold better, I suppose. The nature of the place."

"So," Hermione murmured, "our best bets are Mapother, Rossetti, the Mortuary, York, and if we must, Vincent-Vanbrugh."

"Lovely," Snape muttered. "All over the blasted site."

"Right. Though I really wish ye wouldn't go intae Vincent, as we've no idea what shape it's in and I don't have the a map for that. If one of ye goes through the floor.... Well, it won't be pretty. We're talking calling Emergency Services tae shovel up the bits, I think."

"All right," Hermione said, and turned to Snape. "Do you think that's enough to be getting on with?"

"It will have to do," he said, and added as a fillip to the backstory, "I don't imagine he'll hide if he recognises my voice, at any rate."

Hermione rummaged among the papers, and came up with ground plans for the buildings they'd judged best as Rory rubbed his hands together and said, "Oh-keh. Ye dinna need anything but stout boots and warm, dark jackets, then, because I've got the full kit."

Snape glanced uncertainly at his boots, and Hermione muttered, "I got you a pair of steel-toed hikers, actually -- come on, I've got to get mine, too," and she stood and led him to the bedroom as Rory busied himself with cleaning up the rest of the maps.

"Why in bloody hell --" Snape hissed once they were safely in the bedroom, with the door closed.

"Because I'm not bloody Apparating into a bloody mess like that, the bloody train line doesn't run as late as we'll likely be, and I don't have a bloody car," she snapped back. "I don't even have a bloody operator's licence. I'm giving him a hundred pounds to get us there and to borrow his equipment, and I'm to take a few pictures for him. It's not like he's going in there with us."

"Fine," Snape muttered. "Where are the bloody boots?"

She picked up her wand from the bedside table and held out her other hand.

"Oh no. Do you know how much these cost?" Snape said indignantly.

"Not nearly as much as my Italian pumps, I'm sure," she shot back. "And my Transfiguration won't stick. Hand them over."

*****

The boots Hermione transfigured were, Snape was certain, the ugliest things on the face of the planet. (They even beat the awful Italian shoes she'd tried on in Brighton, and he was certain she'd made them deliberately ghastly, just to get back at him.) He tried to ignore that she'd seen a hole at the big toe of his left sock: the elves had refused to do mending for him this week. Pinky obviously hadn't kept her mouth shut about some things, damn her pop-eyes.

"A mad cousin?" he muttered as he tied up the laces. (Blast it, I haven't had to wear lace-ups since I was in short trousers.) "Was it really necessary to --"

"Homeless, not necessarily mad. Neither of us matches the profile of the average urban explorer, apparently," Hermione said, intent on lacing up her own boots. "I doubted he'd buy idle curiosity. Can you think of something better?"

He couldn't, so kept his mouth shut.

"Thought not. My money's on Vincent-Vanbrugh," she continued. "Eerie reputation, and all that."

"Not necessarily."

"You don't think it could be anti-Muggle warding?"

"Likely is," he said, wincing as he bent over his bad knee for the boot-laces. "But more probably they've taken advantage of the building's reputation and inaccessibility, rather than the reverse. They'd only have set up shop in December 2006, and your impressionable friend out there seems to think it's gone on longer than that."

"He's not my.... Bad reputation, so stabilise the ground floor, set anti-Muggle wards, and Bob's your uncle."

"Possibly.... I never had an uncle, much less one named 'Bob' -- what's that got to do with anything? ...I should think they'd need far more space than a single ward, however, for the experimentation."

Boots adequately tied, Hermione paused to pull back her hair with some sort of springy band; and then they joined Rory in the entryway, pulled on their coats, and left the house.

Snape was not impressed by their mode of transport. He'd never liked the idea of internal combustion engines to begin with, and this particular vehicle looked as though it had gone several rounds against Weasley's Anglia in the depths of the Forest.... He pulled Hermione closer as Rory cheerfully and obliviously hopped inside and leant over to unlock the battered passenger door.

"What in the hell is --"

"A vintage Morris Mini," Hermione hissed. "And beggars can't be choosers. If you make I fuss, I'll make you cram into the back."

"Cramming" was apt, since Hermione, slim as she was, could barely squeeze into the gear-littered rear seat (while Snape would ordinarily appreciate the view and admitted to himself that Rory had good reason for the ogling, he wasn't in the mood tonight); his knees nearly reached his chin when he folded himself into the front seat; and Rory, who was rather chunky-torsoed and mostly legs, literally had a knee on either side of the wheel that poked into the passenger compartment.

"Belt doesn't work, I'm afraid," Rory said to Snape, and tried to start the blasted thing no less than three times; after many sputters and coughs it finally caught, and the car lurched into the open road. "'S okeh, I'll get ye thair in one piece. Kit's back wi' ye, Hermione," he added in a roar over the labouring of the engine. "Might want tae try out the goggles -- they're a lot of fun, and I think ye'll need them tonight more than the torches."

"Right," she yelled back, and Snape could hear her scrabbling about.

Goggles?

She giggled, and Snape craned his head over his shoulder to look: she had some monstrous contraption over her eyes, and was obviously enjoying the experience.

"They help you see in low-light conditions," she explained. "But everything's green. Including you."

"Ye've got high-powered torches, the goggles -- thair's even a little collapsible ladder, but I dinna ken that ye'll want tae muck about wi' that," Rory shouted over the whine of Morris Mini's engine. "If the building's in that bad a shape, I doubt he's in thair. Clipboard for maps, and I chucked in a disposable camera for the snaps -- just be sairtain you don't flash where it can be seen by Security."

"Gotcha," Hermione said.

"If ye find yerself on a rrreally bouncy floor, find the joists and stick tae them. Otherwise ye're liable tae find the fast way down tae the next floor."

Snape was only listening with half an ear, and didn't bother to reply: his eyes were glued to the road, and his hands to the panel in front of him. Rory''s driving was a match for Ernie Prang's (even if the rate of speed couldn't compare), and nearly everything else on the road was larger than Morris Mini: he expected at any moment to find the front of another vehicle squarely in his lap.

Rory swerved onto a larger artery, and then took a ramp labelled "A23": thankfully, some of the road congestion cleared and Snape could breathe more easily... for a moment. Once Rory had a straighter trajectory, he hunched over the wheel and Morris Mini sped up alarmingly. So did the engine-noise.

"You didn't," Hermione accused from the back, quite disorienting Snape, who couldn't figure out which of them she was addressing.

"Did!" Rory shouted back and grinned madly, his barbarian warrior heritage clearly visible on his face (at least as far as Snape was concerned): a lust for blood was simply transmuted into a lust for speed. "Cooper engine in a plain Mini body. Body's a sixty-one, and engine's a sixty-eight -- wee bit of a squeeze, but wi' creative welding we got it in. She doesna' look like much but goes like a rrrocket!"

"Cool," Hermione said cheerfully -- no, enthusiastically: Snape wriggled round and glared at her, and found she still had the blasted goggles on.

She shrugged. "I really like Minis," she hollared. "I just don't have a licence."

The situation had reached such surreal proportions -- the crazed Scotsman next to him driving a super-powered bit of exploding tin down an exceedingly hard-looking roadway, and Hermione behind him looking like nothing so much as a strange amphibian-human hybrid -- that Snape turned back around to face the road, settled in the seat as best he could, braced his arms against the far-too-close front panel, closed his eyes, and mentally promised the shades of Albus Dumbledore and Merlin that he would, really would, give up his second nightly whisky if only he came through the ride alive.

That kept him preoccupied until the nausea hit, at which time he cursed them both and pulled the bargain off the table.

*****

"Rrright, here we goe," Rory muttered after a while. Snape forced himself to open his eyes, and watched as Rory fussed with the knobs in front of him: the engine sputtered and the car bucked -- not good for the nausea -- and Rory fiddled with the knob some more. The car continued to jerk, and Rory swerved toward an exit off the roadway.

"Imagine that," Rory said. "Car trouble at this time o' night, and near bluidy Coulsdon."

Hermione giggled; Snape bit the inside of his cheek to keep from spewing what was left of his luncheon across Morris Mini's interior, in appreciation of Rory's wit.

Some more fiddling, and the ride evened out for a bit, but then the bloody man mucked about with the knob again, and the bucking re-commenced.

"Must we?" Snape muttered through clenched teeth.

"Afraid so," Rory said cheerfully. "Built-up neighbourhood, north side of the road -- I want evidence that the engine sounded bad, if someone should ask. Won't be long."

He was being truthful, thankfully, for after another minute and another tweak of the knob, Morris Mini produced an absolutely appalling death-rattle, died, and Rory -- with much cursing about a lack of 'power steering' -- wrenched the wheel over and guided the damned thing to the verge, near a thicket of dense undergrowth.

"All right," he said. "Here's the plan. I'll stay two hours, which should be enough time tae see if yer cousin's thair, and if the bluidy constabulary find me I'll say I'm waiting for a mate tae come pick me up as it's dead. But I can only stall so long before they get suspicious. I'll have tae fix her and drive off if they do. I'll cruise by on the next hour, but if ye dinna pop out of the woods straight off I won't risk stopping. Agreed?"

"Got it," Hermione said.

"I'll call yer place in the morning, and if ye haven't made it back by then I'll make an anonymous call tae Security tae check on the areas ye're looking at. God help ye if ye need them, though.... And ye'll have tae reimburse me for any lost kit," he added.

"No, that's fine," Hermione said. "Ready, Steven?"

"Gods, yes," Snape muttered, pried open the door, squeezed himself out, and staggered as his stomach and legs re-found their bearings.

Hermione clambered out after him, ducked her head back in, and handed equipment to him -- another pair of the ridiculous goggles, and a metal cylinder; Rory unwrapped himself from the interior, unlatched the engine compartment, and proceeded to fiddle with the engine in what Snape considered a quite unconvincing manner.

"Guid luck," Rory said, and Hermione muttered "Ta. Come on, Se- Steven," and headed off into the undergrowth. Snape followed, legs slightly unsteady; when they were safely away from the road Hermione stopped and said, "All right, time to put on the goggles --"

"No."

She ripped her own headgear off, glared at him in the weak moonlight, and said, "We can't use the torches or a Lumos until we're in a building, we'll be seen crossing the grounds."

"The day I have to wear some ridiculous Muggle contraption to --"

"You're going to stumble about and slow us down at best, and wrench your knee at worst. Do you really want to risk that? Besides, it'll leave your wand free for hexing. You can clip the torch to your belt-loop, and that will leave the other hand free as well."

Well, put like that, no, he didn't want to blow his knee out again, and yes, having his wand free of Lumos might be good idea after all.

"How do you --?" he muttered.

"Give it here and bend down," she said more patiently, and when he did, she pulled the goggles over his head and adjusted the strap so it fit snugly. "Close your eyes for a moment, I'm going to turn them on," she whispered: when he'd done, he heard a click and the faint hum of Muggle electronics.

"Any hexes will shut the damned thing down," he said.

"Not necessarily -- at least not any you cast. Open your eyes slowly, get used to the light."

He cracked his lids, and found Hermione still close to him -- looking strangely anxious -- bathed in a nasty green light that, while it certainly did reveal a great deal more than his night-vision could, reminded him uncomfortably of the colour of the Killing Curse.

"All right?" she said. "Not too bright?"

"No, it's fine."

"Good. Let's go, then."

"You've got the bloody maps," he said. "You lead for now."

She pulled her goggles back over her head, glanced at the clipboard, and headed south-west through the brush.

He hated to admit it, but the damned goggles were impressive. The greenish cast took some getting used to, but he could see the ground quite clearly even under the trees, and any obstructions were easily noted and skirted.

Hermione slowed ahead of him, halted, and waited until he caught up with her.

"We've got to cross the meadow, so head for that patch of brush on the far side. It's nearly eight-thirty," she whispered. "Rory's mate said Security walks that part of the footpath about then, so we'll have to wait until they pass, and then we can join the path ourselves."

"Right."

She darted out into the meadow, taking advantage of any cover available.

He couldn't, of course. Even if he were younger he'd be hard-pressed to keep up with her, and he certainly couldn't with a dickey leg.

He went more slowly, crouching and relying on stealth rather than speed, and eventually reached the brush-pile atop an embankment where she'd been waiting for him, on her stomach, for nearly three minutes.

"All right?" she asked.

"Of course," he snapped back as he flopped down beside her, immensely irritated, and tried to catch his breath.

She seemed to stare at him through the blasted goggles -- one couldn't really tell, of course, but he imagined she was as she didn't turn away -- and then her attention wandered to the footpath at the bottom of the embankment.

"If they don't walk this section soon, we'll have to chance it," she murmured.

They waited for a very long ten minutes before a light glimmered at the curve of the path, to their left.

"Here we go," she said, and burrowed face-down as close to the ground as she could get -- and then started when a dog barked, and grabbed at Snape's arm.

"Oh, cripes," she mouthed. "Dog."

"Brilliant deduction," he mouthed back.

Oh. Damn.

He shook her hand from his arm (she'd nearly bruised him, he was sure), and dredged up an obnoxious old trick that had worked beautifully in Third Year until Sirius Black had cottoned onto it.

"Stop your nose," he mouthed as the pool of light -- and the jingling of dog-harness -- grew closer.

"Stop your nose," he mouthed through a snarl, and reached over with his free hand to tweak what little of her nose peeked out from beneath the goggles. (She slapped his hand away immediately and jumped at the noise of that, but got the idea and pinched her nostrils together.)

The guard and dog were close enough now that they could hear them faintly, the dog straining at its harness and whuffing excitedly: the guard -- who was apparently a bit dim, and not expecting trespassers -- chivvied out loud, "Whoa, Bosco, don't tear my arm off, lad.... Rabbits again, is it?" (Bosco snuffled and gave a more threatening bark, loosely translatable as "No, Thicko, it's two-legs and they're on my turf.")

Snape pinched his nostrils closed with his free hand, pointed his wand skyward, and muttered, "Felix Feotidus."

It was pure luck, he reckoned, that it worked so well: he'd always had a target for that particular bit of mischief, and had never worried much about subtlety because, at the time, excess had never been enough. But the wind was right, and the charm worked just enough to alarm the guard.

"Blimey -- no, Bosco -- Bosco, NO! 'S a bloody polecat, you stupid git...."

Bosco barked quite excitedly once again, and they heard the snap of the lead and jingle of the harness as the guard pulled back on it. "Come on, idiot," the guard muttered, and hurried his steps, dragging along the reluctant dog (who must be quite confused, judging by his whimpers: whatever it was hadn't smelt of polecat before.) Snape peered through the undergrowth as man and dog went off down the path, and then nudged Hermione, who let out her breath in a great whoosh -- and then she inhaled and gagged.

"My God --" she wheezed, and coughed into her sleeve.

"Worked, didn't it?" Snape muttered back.

"Yes, but.... Oh, never mind. Let's go."

They crawled over the edge of the embankment and slid down it, and trotted off down the path in the opposite direction to the guard and Bosco, with the forbidding, iron-barred fence on their right.

"Rory's not going to want us back in the Mini," Hermione said.

"It will wear off by then, damn it, stop whinging. Where's the hole in the bloody fence?"

It took another five minutes' searching to find it: not a proper hole at all, but a section where an enterprising explorer had managed to break the welds on two of the bars, and to rather cunningly bolt them back on the inside of the top rail so they swung free at the bottom.

"Good Lord, someone took a lot of time with that," Hermione said.

"Good on them -- get in."

Hermione squeezed through pretty easily, but it was a close shave for Snape. (One too many sausages, he decided. Or ten or twenty. He really ought do something about that before he got too sluggish and needed his trousers let out. Again.)

Once through, he asked her, "Right, what's closest?" and tried to ignore that he'd ripped a hole in said trousers in the scuffle.

"Mortuary. It should be about thirty yards dead ahead. ...Sorry. No pun intended."

"Never mind levity, get going!"

She took off like a coney, damn her, head bent low to scan the ground and to skirt several piles of rubble (and one rather nasty hole in the ground, the remains of one of the smaller outbuildings); Snape followed more cautiously, eyes searching the grounds in front of them and to each side, wary of the security guard or of any ambushes. They met up again, finally, at a tremendous pile of brush that wouldn't have been amiss in the Forbidden Forest.

"Lost us, haven't you." he muttered.

"No, it's here. I mean, this is it, beneath all the vegetation," she whispered. "We're at the corner of the Gatehouse. The only door to the Mortuary's around the corner. Once in the first room, there's another to the right."

"Stay behind me, and don't follow me into a room until I tell you it's safe," he said, and slipped around the corner, wand at the ready.

While the Gatehouse walls and rampant undergrowth gave some cover from any lurkers shooting through the windows, Snape was uncomfortable at being so exposed: so he stayed as close as possible to the wall until he'd reached the Mortuary door. There was no noise at all from inside -- quite easy to determine, as the closest windows had lost most of their panes -- and he could detect only a fresh, standard anti-Muggle ward (a badly-executed one, at that). The door was padlocked shut, but that was easily solved with a charm which was quite illegal for anyone but an auror to practise, and then Snape sidled into the first chilly room of the Mortuary: it seemed several degrees cooler than the outside air.

No moonlight came through the dead, tangled vines that blocked the windows-frames, none at all.... Hermione poked him in the back, and he swatted at her with his free hand to get her to bugger off. (She was already disobeying, damn it. He'd have to teach her a lesson about that, sharpish. Or as soon as they got out of this bloody mess.) He took a tentative step further into the room, found the floor sound under the rubbish that littered it, and took another noiseless pace.

There was something odd, very odd about the place. It was certainly felt as dank and nasty as any derelict building Snape had ever been in -- and those were several, given the Dark Lord's propensity for choosing rather nasty, abandoned gathering-sites -- but it was also different. Snape closed his eyes, reached up and fumbled with the goggles to shut off their annoying, electric hum, and simply waited for the place to... well, to tell him something. Some sound, or creak, or the whisper of panicked breathing from anyone other than Hermione (who seemed to be doing rather well with hers, actually)....

He caught it, then, a faint and tantalising mixture of scent and feeling, damped down by the weight of darkness but just palpable to heightened senses. It felt as though someone had been here recently -- or, to be more precise, something had lived here recently -- but they were gone. And a familiar, faintly cloying smell drifted from the room that lay to the right, its wide door, one-quarter open, hanging drunkenly by one hinge.

"Lumos," he muttered, and shoved the goggles up his forehead with his free hand the better to see the mess along the floor. Hermione squeaked a protest, and he muttered over his shoulder, "Don't worry, he's not here. Even if he is, we needn't worry."

"But.... It's not that, you've nearly blinded me. Look, use the torch and keep your wand free," she said, stumbled over to him, unclipped the torch from his belt, and showed him how to switch it on. "Keep it away from the windows, you don't want the guard to see any light. What in the world do you mean, we needn't --"

"What was this room?" he interrupted her, and extinguished his Lumos.

Hermione rummaged with the papers on her clipboard and said, "Chapel of Rest... erm, a viewing-room, more or less. For laying-out and viewing the, erm, deceased. Next one's the mortuary proper, the preparation room."

He shone the torch to his right and picked his way through the debris that littered the path; and then he dragged the warped door open and cautiously peered into the adjoining room, found it empty of life or the once-living, and stepped inside.

It was as lavishly strewn with smashed and plundered objects as the Chapel of Rest was, and the vines and ivy had encroached through broken window-panes looking for purchase along the tiled walls, as if Nature intended to reclaim the place for Her own.

Unfortunately, someone on the side of death had staked a stronger claim. The smell was heavier here: there wasn't a doubt in Snape's mind as to what it was, but he couldn't find the source.

"Ewwwww," Hermione said from the doorway.

"I thought I told you to --"

"What's that on the tables? It's glowing rather strangely in these things."

Snape flicked his torch at the two enamelled embalming-tables, which looked as though they were sprouting green fuzz, and muttered truthfully, "Mould. Or slime, I suppose. Could be luminescent fungi." (He neglected to point out the nasty, brownish stains at the low end of both tables or the discarded instruments tossed into a corner basin, and decided not to worry over their significance until he had further evidence.) Another flick of the torch revealed two small openings on the south side of the room.

"What are those?"

Hermione snuffled a bit, muttered something about "Stinks," -- she hadn't caught on, not yet, which told Snape quite a bit about her lack of certain experiences -- and added "Storage and workers'... cupboards, I think it says."

A quick glance proved the map right: the first room he checked was a washing-up station, and the second contained two utilitarian workmens' cupboards, one with India-rubber boots still neatly placed in front of it, as if the mortician were due to come in to work in a few hours' time. The cupboard doors were gaping wide, and there was nothing at all of interest in them.

"And the last room?" Snape said of a wider door at the far end of the room: it was intact, and was padlocked shut.

"It, ah, doesn't say," Hermione muttered.

"Stay here," Snape commanded, neatly charmed the padlock open, took a deep breath of relatively unpolluted air, flung the door open, and stepped inside.

Hermione was quite right: it stank, and this room was the source of it. Against the longer wall was a series of five cupboards, and rather deep ones judging by how far they jutted into the room.

There was nothing for it but to open one, so, trusting the floors, Snape strode over, shoved his wand up his sleeve, wrestled with the latch, and flung the door open as he covered his nose and mouth with his other arm; he staggered a bit as the stench hit him, and then he retrieved the torch from that hand and shone the light into the cavity.

What lay within was not, however, precisely what he'd expected.

The cupboard, lined with three horizontal trays on rolling assembly, was far too cramped to tell for certain -- especially as he could only see the corpse's feet, or what there was left of them -- so he grabbed at a scrap of cloth from the floor, reached for the bar at the end of the tray, and hauled the whole thing out.

He should have laughed in relief had it not been such a pathetic sight: judging by the skull, it must be what was left of an elf, in a rather advanced state of decomposition.

*****

Hermione had not been prescient enough to shield her face, and had been foolish enough to follow him in: but he hadn't quite realised she had a clear view of the mangled remains until she gagged and managed a choked, "Oh -- oh, God," and stumbled back into the Embalming Room. He could hear her being quite violently sick as he pulled the other two trays from the cupboard to examine the remains.

Well, serves her right, he thought. That'll teach her to moderate her curiosity....

He stayed as long has his stomach could bear it, verifying that the other cupboards were fully occupied, and trying to determine what might have been done to the poor little sods.

When he'd finished the grisly enumeration he retreated to the Embalming Room, closed the door and re-locked the padlock, and threw a stench-dampening charm at the Cold Store.

Hermione was still heaving, bent over the nearest embalming-table, adding to the stink of the place: Snape detoured to the only accessible window -- which, perversely, still had glass in its lowest pane -- knocked the glass out with a well-placed elbow, and sucked in a lungful of fresh air. When Hermione seemed to have settled down a bit he reached for her, pried her hands from the edge of the table, pulled her over to the window, and held her steady while she took huge, juddering breaths.

"Had a good dinner, didn't you?" he muttered. "Prime error when going on a mission."

"Sod... ...off," Hermione managed to gasp, and ripped off her goggles, the better to press her face to the window-frame. "Should've... ...warned me... ..if you'd thought...."

He hadn't thought to find this, actually, and so rather than snapping back he simply held her tighter, moving one hand upward to rub at her arm in what he hoped was a soothing manner. (He wasn't about to apologise, but he probably owed her a bit of, of... of comfort. She might be able to see the Thestrals, but she'd obviously never seen -- nor smelt -- what happened after death.)

"How many?" Hermione managed after a bit.

"Seventeen. Fifteen trays, actually, but two are... shared. And I think there were at least two pregnant females as well."

He felt her diaphragm lurch at that, but she fought and controlled it.

Good girl.

"So they're still here, then," she said dully. "They're still here and using the facility, and dumping their failures here. Perhaps we ought to call in Shacklebolt --"

"No. What could he do? There are no laws that I know of regulating abuse of wild elves. And I highly doubt that 'they' are still here -- rather, Debdale isn't. I think Petherbridge likely is."

"How do you --"

"Debdale is almost certainly overseeing work at Mangel and Mortars, for one. And two, he's a finicky sort, I've heard -- everything ship-shape, tidied up, and properly disposed-of, even after he causes the most disgusting messes. Three...." He hesitated, not quite knowing how to put it without sending her into another fit of retching, and then simply plunged into it. "Three, some of the rubbish here doesn't seem to be general, but medical waste. Things you wouldn't find except in a working medical area, and that the Muggles should have cleaned up before they abandoned the site.... Unfortunately, you've, ah, contaminated some of the evidence, there."

Hermione glanced over at the embalming table, and squinted hard -- there was a faint green glow from the goggles in her free hand, but not enough to see well: so Snape obligingly pointed the torch at the surface, and she noted the stains and muck mixed with her bile, hiccoughed, and twisted in his arm to bury her face against his coat-front.

"They didn't use this as mere storage, Hermione, and certainly not as a mortuary," he said, flicked off the torch, and pulled her a little closer to him. "Debdale and Petherbridge used the place as a morgue. And I'm going to guess that Petherbridge is on his own and, given the muck and the... the damage I saw on those bodies, that he's gone mad. If he wasn't already."

"But that state of -- I know I'm not an expert, but that state of decomposition.... It could have been months ago."

"They're not all that far gone, there are one or two quite... fresh. It's cold in here, true, but not enough, and there aren't any cooling charms on the cupboards. Debdale would never have allowed any of his work areas to degrade and risk contamination, never, not even a place like this. So, given that the anti-Muggle wards were recently set, Petherbridge still has enough sense to protect the premises, but he's not doing the mucking-out any longer. And he's given in to some rather nasty impulses."

"How badly --"

"Don't ask," Snape said flatly. "It goes beyond a reasonable post-mortem dissection. Let's leave it at that."

She was silent for a very long time, and then said decisively, "Well, that's that, then. We have to check all the buildings that are in the least stable."

"What?"

"If there are.... If there are some that are only recently dead, it stands to reason that there might still be some living, right?"

"Hermione, we did not come here to rescue elves --"

"I can't leave until I know," she said, stubborn, and balled up her fist in his coat-front. "I just can't. Besides, if we find and catch him and leave them here, they'll starve."

"All the Histories say they were nasty, vicious little sods in their untamed state, they didn't even understand human speech --"

"That doesn't matter. We can't just leave them to starve in... well, wherever he has them."

"You're willing to risk an elf-hexing, when we have far more important things to --"

"Yes," she insisted, and thumped at his chest as she began snivelling. "Yes, yes I am. Or everything I said to Pinky was a lie, and she has every right to start hexing wizards left, right, and centre --"

It was rather convenient to give in, at any rate. What Petherbridge had done to those elves was truly disgusting: and, judging by the terror and pain frozen on the dead little faces that were still intact, the bastard hadn't always waited until they were completely dead, either.

"We make certain he's not in the building first," Snape said, trying to keep some control of the situation. "And if he's got alarm-wards on them, we don't set them free until we've disabled him. Agreed?"

She nodded and buried her face into the front of his coat again.

"Get hold of yourself, then. We're going to have to hurry -- and I won't compromise on our safety, Hermione, I'm warning you."

She nodded once more, pushed away from him and turned back to the window, and took in more fresh air for a precious minute: and then she said, voice hard, "All right. Where do you want to start?"

"What's closer?"

"York, I think."

"There, then."

Hermione pulled her goggles back on before marching smartly toward the door, stumbling over an evil-looking piece of embalming equipment in the process.

"Hold up," Snape muttered. "If you go barging in willy-nilly --"

"I'm not," she said, turning back at the doorway. "I'm.... ...I'm just so angry I could... spit. And I'm damned well warding the place against any intrusions so he and Debdale can't destroy all this, so shift your arse. We've got work to do."

He should have been outraged at that -- at Hermione Granger, his subordinate, protégé, and bloody wife ordering him to move -- but all he could muster up was bemusement.

She's bloody resilient in some situations, he thought. How terribly sad, that Dumbledore and the rest never gave her a chance to prove it.

*****

Despite her tearing rage -- and after casting an impressive ward over all possible entrances to the Mortuary -- Hermione proved to be as cautious as he could like, guiding him across the yards and along the outer corridors quite prudently, until they'd reached a building she deemed the right one.

"All right. Two choices: we Levitate up to the first floor -- that's Zachary -- or we pull off the plywood here," she whispered of the boarded-up windows.

Snape glanced upward, noting the gaping, frameless window-openings above them, and shuddered.

"You send me first," he granted. "I need to be able to deflect and shoot. Once I've secured the room, I'll bring you. If, ah, you feel up to Levitating someone my size."

Hermione -- still, unnervingly, in the damned goggles (he hated not being able to see her eyes and judge her reactions) -- cocked her head, shrugged in a most unreassuring manner, and promptly pointed her wand at him and cast Leviosa -- quite nicely, too; none of the bobbles or hesitation he remembered from being subjected to it as a guinea-pig for his partner in Flitwick's class. He rose steadily, passing the tops of the ground-floor window frames and the band of tile-work that separated the ground- and first-floor levels. She slowed his ascent as he reached the first floor, and thoughtfully steered him to the blank wall between two openings so he shouldn't be a total sitting-duck.

She wriggled him nearer the window a bit at a time, until he motioned her to stop and hold him stationary; and then he risked shining the torch in, found the room empty -- though the door to the corridor was gaping wide -- switched off the torch and re-clipped it at his waist, and pulled himself over the sill. (Another tight squeeze, damn it -- the first-floor windows weren't nearly as generous as the ground-floor, and Snape preferred not to consider why: he doubted it was purely a design choice.)

Once inside he risked charming a temporary barrier at the doorway, so he shouldn't be ambushed, and reciprocated Hermione's Levitation (not quite as well as she, blast it, but not badly), and then helped her pull herself through the frame.

"Careful," he whispered. "The floor's spongey."

"Right.... Ewwwww, what a mess," she said, getting a good look at the room, and then scraping some muck from the bottom of her shoe. "I think the pigeons have come home to roost. Literally. And look at that wallpaper, it's peeling away and growing things --"

"For Merlin's sake, stop fussing over.... Where's the bloody plan?"

"Hang on a moment.... Damn, there's only the ground floor. But if they're set up the same, there should be a stairwell just outside to the left."

Snape swore softly. "So we've no idea how many bloody rooms on this floor?"

"Well, the wards should be identical. We're probably in the Day Room. There are some smaller rooms... cubicles, I guess, or cells, across and down the corridor. Shall we split up and go from the middle, or --"

"No. We go eastward first, you watch my back. Make certain this floor is clear before we go downstairs."

"All right," she said, and crept across the room after him across the shaky floors. "Best stay on the joists, as Rory said. Erm, those are --"

"I know what bloody joists are, Hermione, I'm not ignorant."

"Just trying to help," she muttered as he dropped the barrier.

In the end, though, making certain the floor was clear was an easy task: just past the loos and six of the cells, the floor had caved in, opening up a gaping hole leading twelve feet straight down. Even the thresholds of some of the nearest cells had begun to sag downward toward the collapse.

"You don't think he'd Levitate over there, do you?" Hermione whispered. "The plan says it's just the baths and a kitchen."

"Not likely, not given the state of the floors. Turn back, let's check the cells."

The cells on Zachary had their Muggle locks firmly in place, and no key was in plain view: and a survey with the torch through the disturbing little windows in each door proved that they were empty.

"Next floor," Snape whispered over his shoulder, and cautiously edged down the corridor.

The reason for the lack of life was clear when they reached the stairs: half the run had disintegrated, leaving the choice of quite a jump down to the landing, or of more Levitation. (They chose Levitation, of course, although Snape had serious doubts about their ability to continue like that all evening. They'd both drop from exhaustion at this rate.)

Snape crept down the lower twist in the stair first, wand ready, and mentally cursed the bloody useless goggles. There was no light at all on York's ground floor with the windows boarded securely, so there was nothing for it but to switch the damned torch back on and edge down the long hallway (it truncated abruptly, blocked by the debris from the floor above), trying to avoid the trash on the floor and to negotiate blind corners.

"He's not here," Hermione muttered, voice sulky.

"Shut up," Snape hissed.

"Well, he's not. You shone the light all the way down, and you were a perfect target. Why wouldn't he have fired or Apparated out directly?"

"We are dealing with a potential madman here, you know --"

"We must have made loads of noise, anyway, given the floor upstairs. Give over, we're wasting time --"

Snape committed the grave error -- at least, it might be -- in spinning to face her, stepping in until they were nearly nose-to-nose, and muttering, "I told you that safety came first. If you can't accept that, leave now."

She opened her mouth to retort, and stilled as a high-pitched whine sounded from the further end of the corridor. Snape froze himself, and slowly turned to listen more intently -- and then they heard it again.

"Oh, hell," Hermione said hopelessly. "They're down here."

"Some of them, at any rate. Come along," he said, and inched his way down the corridor, past what must have been the Sisters' station, across the Day Room, into the corridor, and toward the first cell, into which he shone the torch.

It certainly was an elf inside, though one would be hard-pressed to identify it as such when compared to the average Hogwarts elf. It was smaller than usual, though he couldn't tell whether from malnutrition -- for it was starving, he could clearly see its ribs -- or whether wild elves were smaller overall; the wretched, shivering thing was huddled in a corner of the cell, naked, without so much as a blanket or scrap of cloth against the cold, and its waste covered the floor. As it had smeared its own excrement well up the walls, Snape reckoned it had lost any wits it once had. It squealed when the light struck it, snarled, and then curled itself into a ball.

"How is it --"

"Don't bother looking," Snape said grimly. "You don't wish to see, really. In fact.... Go back to the Day Room and get one of the windows open. If you really want to do this, that's the only way I can think to get them out without blowing out the cell windows -- and that will make far too much noise. The bloody things are barred."

"But --"

"Hermione, the bloody ward on this door is meant to cancel out their magic. As long as they're in there we're safe, but as soon as they pass the door, they're likely to attack. They're wild creatures, Hermione, not tame House-Elves. I'm going to open each door and loose them one at a time, and we'll have to herd them toward the open window and deflect anything they throw at us at the same time. I'd rather you be at the other end of the Day Room, because if one charges in this direction, I'm quicker with hexes. Understood?"

"Yes," she said quietly.

"Pick the largest window you can, one that will let in moonlight so they can see it's an escape. Let me know when you're done."

Hermione returned to the Day Room: he could hear her muttering to herself first, and then the more melodious phrasing of an incantation followed by the faint protest of nails being forced from boards and window-frames. He busied himself with surveying the inhabitants of the other five cells, and had only partly done when he saw a weak light filtering across the Day Room floor and she called softly, "I've finished. You can send the first."

"Good. Go stand behind that wretched station, there -- that will give you some cover."

He waited until she'd done his bidding, cast his barrier-spell at the stairwell end of the corridor -- just what they'd need, one of the little sods escaping upstairs and then attacking them later -- cautiously cracked the first cell door open, and waited.

And waited.

"What --"

"Shhhh," he commanded, and sighed as a scuffling at the door told him the bloody little beast had been ready to poke its head out, but had now retreated.

He cast Serpensortia into the room, choosing a harmless snake as the spell's avatar.

On later reflection, that was a mistake: the elf, incapable of reason, shrieked in terror (which set its neighbours to shrieking as well), shot out of the cell and turned the wrong way, bounced off Snape's shins, and lunged to snap -- only a quick deflection saved Snape from a nasty bite -- before the elf bounded off on all fours toward the Day Room, hissed at Hermione, and fled toward the moonlight.

"It's off. One down," Hermione whispered.

"Why wasn't it walking upright?" Hermione added.

"They don't, apparently," Snape muttered. "I suppose that's a function of domestication."

"Oh."

Snape opened the next cell and its prisoner didn't waste a second, tearing off like Rory the Mad Scotsman's Morris Mini: it didn't even bother to snarl or hiss. The next prisoner was a bit odd. An elderly male (well, as they were all naked it was fairly obvious, and this specimen had rather impressive testicles that had succumbed to gravity) sauntered out, stared at Snape in frank appraisal, found him not worthy of bothering with, and coolly walked into the Day Room.

"He's out. I think, judging by his expression," Hermione called softly across the room, "that that was the Severus Snape of elves."

If he'd thought Hermione could see him clearly, Snape would have bothered to sneer.

The next two elves took a fair bit of coaxing, but eventually scuttled off with only token snaps and snarls. The last, however, refused to come out, and Snape only saw why when he risked a glance around the door and shone his torch in: a female who -- judging from the muck on the floor -- had only recently given birth. He thought at first that she was too weak to even notice him, and then he realised when he cautiously approached her that her eyes were milky: she'd been blinded at some point, though he couldn't tell if it was intentional. Clutched in her spindly arms was an infant, dead (and for some time), which she was still feebly trying to nurse although her teats were dry.

"Oh God," Hermione muttered behind his shoulder.

"Did I or did I not tell you not to leave the station?"

"No, you didn't, and I got concerned.... She's not in good shape, is she?"

"No," he said, and coughed a bit from the stink of the dead baby. And bloody hell, here it comes -- 'Oh, we have to get her to Hogwarts straightaway, Severus, I shan't be able to live with myself if we don't --'

But Hermione was silent for a long time, and then she said tentatively, "I know it's not fair to ask this of you, but could you... could you put her down, please?"

"What?"

"Well, she won't survive in the wild like that, will she? And I'd guess she's about to go anyway, if her breathing's any indication. I'd do it myself, but I don't think I can. Harry told me that Bellatrix Black said you have to want to kill. Have the proper intent. And I... I've never had to cast that, you see, and I don't think I can, even if I don't want her to be in pain any longer...."

He shoved his outrage aside. She didn't mean it that way: she was simply being realistic, as he had been when he'd told her he was quicker with hexes. He couldn't fault her for that.

"I really wouldn't ask," she added quietly. "But we can't leave her like that, really we can't. It's a kindness, and it's the least we can do given what they've done to her."

That had been his thought precisely. "Go outside and shut the door," he said heavily. "It'll light up the whole building if you don't. And don't look through the bloody window."

She shuffled back to the corridor, and he heard the thud of the heavy latch; he stood, took several careful paces back (avoiding the shit and rotting afterbirth), levelled his wand at the poor creature, and whispered a sincere and extremely effective "Avada Kedavra."

*****

Hermione had retreated back to the Sisters' station when he left the hellish little cell, her wand at the ready -- at least she was being alert, and not indulging in any snivelling or sentimentality -- and she said, "Thank you."

"Don't," he said, voice sharper than he'd intended. "Don't belabour it, let's just.... We need to get going. Where next?"

"Vincent-Vanbrugh's closest, but Rory's probably right and we ought leave it as a last resort.... Mapother's the only building on the west. Rossetti's this side, toward the front. We can't go through the corridor system, though, because that's the end that the first floor's fallen into. We'll have to cross the yards."

"Rossetti, then," he said, and strode over to the open window. Hermione followed, waiting quietly while he clambered through the frame and dropped a few feet to ground-level, wincing as it jarred both knee and hip. It was probably only his imagination -- or the unevenness of the ground below the window -- but he fancied that Hermione held his shoulder a bit longer and more tightly than was strictly necessary, when he helped her with the drop.

"This way," she muttered, and led him southward across the yard and an overgrown garden, up to a low brick retaining wall: she handed off the clipboard to him, jumped and scrambled up it with enviable agility, and dropped down on the other side.

It took him rather longer, unfortunately, and necessitated tossing over all the kit first, and earned him scraped palms and a second trouser-tear. (But it was better than another Levitation.)

"That's it, over there," Hermione whispered, and pointed to the distant bulk of a building to the south. "It's awfully exposed."

"Walk along the corridor wall, then," he told her as he adjusted the bloody goggles back over his head.

"I don't see any lights in the building," Hermione said doubtfully.

"Doesn't mean he's not there, just that he may have blocked the windows. Debdale should have knocked some security measures into him."

They began the long hike along the exterior of the services corridor, taking advantage of the moments when the moon was cloud-covered to put on some speed, and going stealthy when it peeped out again; and after an excruciating ten minutes, they'd reached the north wall of Rossetti-Ruskin.

"It's a bisected ward -- the main corridor separates the Day Room from the cells. But how do we get in? We don't dare go to the front, Security might see us," Hermione whispered.

Bloody shame your friend Potter got his cloak back from me....

"We don't, yet. First floor's out as all those windows are still intact, and trying to open them will make too much noise.... Stay here." He sidled along the north side of the building, toward the tiny, barred windows that he now recognised as cell windows, stopping under each and listening for any sound. He was near the end of the cell block when a glimmer of light sparked in the night-vision goggles, and he froze and back-tracked a half-pace.

They'd been careless with the painting -- from the streakiness it must be paint, rather than fabric or a charm that would have to be renewed often -- and Snape nestled closer to the building, ducked under the sill, and cast a sound-enhancing charm that he reckoned would have delighted Harry Bloody Potter et al, especially those incorrigible Weasley twins. He heard nothing but heavy, panicked breathing for a moment, and then a human, male yelp.

"Damn you, you... ...little beast, hold --"

An Elphine squeal nearly split Snape's eardrum, and then another, more pained, human yelp.

" -- bloody fucking animal, you ne- ... learn, I'm... ...teach you once and for all --"

Something hit the interior wall with a thud, quite close to Snape, and he jumped. He couldn't recognise the voice as Petherbridge's after so many years, but at this point it hardly mattered: what did was that the person was involved in quite a struggle with one of the creatures. (It had to be Petherbridge, then. He couldn't imagine Debdale soiling his hands by actually tussling with one of them.) He crept away from the window and hurried back to Hermione.

"He's in one of the last cells," he told her under his breath. "A bit preoccupied. We'll have to risk Apparating inside -- into the Day Room, on the other side of the corridor. We secure the Day Room, then we cross the corridor and stay still until we're certain he hasn't heard us."

"What's he --"

"I don't know, but it doesn't sound good. No matter what you see, Hermione, bear in mind that we want him alive. He can't tell us anything if one of us loses our head and kills him. Understand?"

"Yes. Not that I could."

"Given the right circumstances, you could -- don't underestimate yourself. Have you had a chance to practise Apparition by map?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Nothing for it, then.... Look at the map," he said, training his torch on her clipboard, "and concentrate on that room. Be sure to feel the space around you. On three. Ready?"

She nodded, Snape counted, and on "Three," they popped into the Day Room of Rossetti Ward.

*****

There was artificial lighting in the Day Room that dazzled Snape's eyes for a moment, before they adjusted and he was able to see the room through the eerie green cast of the goggles.

Contrary to expectations, Debdale and Petherbridge had elected to use Rossetti despite its proximity to the front of the property: the southern windows were heavily masked with dark fabric, and they'd set up quite a laboratory in the Day Room. The floor seemed rather more stable than Nightingale had, so Snape supposed they'd opted for safety; and they'd swept any muck over into a corner, leaving a relatively clear path around the tables and to the corridor.

Hermione hadn't been so lucky as he, having Apparated quite close to one of the tables -- he heard her stifle a moan, and saw her grab at her hip where the table-edge had gouged into it.

"All right?" he mouthed. He couldn't see her eyes, of course, but her lips were twisted into a grimace.

She managed a nod, and then jerked as a high-pitched shriek came from down the corridor, followed by a laugh.

Snape motioned for Hermione to go to the north-eastern end of the Day Room, and he negotiated the warren of tables and free-standing apparatus to take position at the north-western side; and then with a motion to her to stay put he stepped across the main corridor. He stayed as close to the wall as he could and moved into the north end of Rossetti, toward the open cell and the weak candlelight from within it that stained the threshold.

"Like to see you get out of that, now. What shall it be tonight, I wonder? No match for me at duelling, no, with that puny untrained magic of yours --"

Good gods, he's planning on torturing the poor thing. Really torturing it, Snape thought, and halted as a floorboard creaked under his toe.

"-- no good for breeding -- D'you know how you drove him mad with that, you the only one he couldn't get to.... Well, no, you wouldn't, you witless little cretin. Got me in the shitter, you did, he kept blaming it on me, said I cocked it up...."

The cell door was hanging open, and Snape was nearly at it, now.

"I reckon you owe me for that, a lot. You're why he did this to me, you know."

Petherbridge giggled, the sound bouncing back toward the corridor off the cell walls, and Snape guessed that his back was to the door. He risked a look inside.

It was Petherbridge, all right: he recognised the whitish hair, nearly as blond as Malfoy's, and the silhouette of a prominent cow-lick bang at the top of Petherbridge's head. But there was something odd about him as well: even from behind Snape could tell that his clothes hung off his shoulders and hips, and he stood with a curious, hunch-backed stance. He couldn't see the elf as Petherbridge was blocking the view.

"I think," Petherbridge was saying, and giggled again, "that I deserve a special treat tonight, before I'm.... before I'm not in a position to appreciate it any longer. I spent months watching you little bastards fucking away, and he'd never let me go off to do anything about it. Or do anything about it here, either. But he's not my master any more. And you're going to learn who's yours."

Petherbridge began to fumble with something in front of him, and Snape decided it must be his trousers-buttons.

Merlin's balls and beard, if Hermione sees anything at all like that, he's a dead man.

"I shouldn't," he said flatly, and trained both torch and wand at Petherbridge's back.

Petherbridge froze, and then giggled nervously. "I know that voice," he said, his high-pitched, strained voice grating on Snape's nerves. "I know that voice, I do. McGonagall let Hogwarts' pet Potions Master out of his cage, did she?"

"Let's save some time, shall we? Greasy git, miserable bastard, Death Eater, bane of your existence.... Are there any others? No? No further bon mots from the expansive Hufflepuff wit? How disappointing, such lack of originality. If you're done trying to goad me, Petherbridge, raise your hands -- slowly -- and keep them up."

"You won't like what you see," Petherbridge said, and slowly raised his left hand only: Snape trained the torch on it, and noted that it was dripping blood from a bite-wound.

It was more than odd, it was obscene. Petherbridge's hand looked like that of a wizard who'd got stuck halfway through an Animagus transformation: it was elongated and misshapen, the fingers terminating in spatulate ends.

"Needn't worry about that getting infected, it won't matter. He's turned me, you see," Petherbridge said, and giggled. "The bastard wouldn't kill me outright, he turned me somehow. Came back a few weeks ago, knocked me out, fed me some awful muck that he brewed up in secret, and cast a bloody hex. It's not all at once, mind you, it's been a slow and painful process.... I'm about half-gone, I think. Having trouble reasoning properly, most of the time --"

He turned his head to stare over his shoulder, and the full horror of it hit Snape. Petherbridge looked only vaguely human, now, the shaggy hair concealing ears that had begun to point: his nose had grown longer as well, his skin thicker and more wrinkled -- he looked more like a wizard of one hundred -- and the single eye that Snape could see had grown bulbous and had begun to jut out of the socket. His back had warped and twisted, and he seemed to have shrunk from his Seventh-Year height: the loose clothing was not just from under-feeding, then, but an actual, physical transformation from man to elf.

"For Merlin's sake, Petherbridge --"

"He said," Petherbridge gasped, "that as I wanted to bugger them, I might as well be one. And he's warded me here, so I can't leave. Left supplies and my wand, to see if I'd be a coward and draw it out or do the brave thing and end it quick.... I couldn't," he added in a sob. "I haven't the guts to end it. He said he'd come back to clear everything up and maybe he'd put me out of my misery then, but he hasn't, he hasn't, the lying bastard --"

"If it can be done, it can be undone -- if you come along quietly, and now. Show me your other hand, Petherbridge, before I have to do something drastic."

"Too late, too late!" Petherbridge sang, his voice cracking. "He said it's his own potion, not in any books, and no second-rate schoolmaster will crack it before I'm gone -- "

Snape stiffened.

"Oh, that's got you, 'second-rate,' hasn't it?" Petherbridge said, and grinned. "No matter. Only thing for it is to let it happen, and p'raps the bloody ward won't recognise me and I can get out --"

"Petherbridge, shut up, put up the other hand, and turn slowly!"

Snape heard Hermione move into the main corridor, and sent her the mental message to get the bloody hell back.

"Can't. Can't get the other arm up above my shoulder, now, it's buggered. I'll go really slowly, though, if it'll make you happy," Petherbridge said obligingly, and began to shuffle painfully about to face Snape.

Snape rather wished Petherbridge hadn't, and that he'd just stunned the madman outright: he barely looked human any longer. He also had a good look at the elf as Petherbridge lurched to the side: it was chained to the wall, limbs spread. This particular specimen had gone through quite a beating, and the expression on its face could only be interpreted as absolute terror, any defiance gone.

"'Course, p'raps you could do something," Petherbridge wheezed when he'd turned round fully, his wand arm twisted up nearly to his breast-bone. "P'raps you aren't the washed-up, glorified apothecary we always reckoned."

Complete attention, self-control or lack of it, a moment's hesitation -- these were among the things upon which good or bad outcomes hinged, Snape knew well: it still didn't prepare him for the surge of rage that led him to spit "Shut up and step away from the --" instead of Binding the bastard immediately.... Petherbridge took full advantage of it by dropping his wand arm, flicking the wand backward with a neat twist of the wrist, and loosing the manacles that bound the elf to the wall; the terrified creature dropped to the ground and streaked for the doorway -- and for Snape. Given the choice between taking his wand off Petherbridge, or casting a deflection to.... Well, there wasn't a choice: Petherbridge would almost certainly hex Snape's bollocks off the moment he dropped his wand.

Snape side-stepped to avoid the frightened elf, put himself off-balance, and consequently was unprepared for the creature to swerve and hit him directly in the knees with astonishing force, sending him backward to crash into the nearest wall and knocking his head against the damnably-intact plaster.

Wand, torch, and goggles went flying in either direction as Snape hit the floor, and as the elf scuttled off toward the main corridor: in a matter of seconds Petherbridge was bent over him, breath foul, his twisted, nearly inhuman face blessedly shadowed and unreadable. His dug his wand into Snape's breast-bone through the flimsy layers of Muggle coat and shirt.

"Who'd have thought it?" Petherbridge said wonderingly. "All those stories the bloody Slytherins would tell, boasting about what a brilliant hexer you are, how brave you were during the war.... All lies, aren't they?" A gob of Petherbridge's saliva struck Snape's cheek, and he flinched: Petherbridge giggled, and then continued in that eerie sing-song, "Must be, if I can kill you. Or.... No, that's it. You're past your prime, old man. Glory days over.... Should have left it to a younger man, so stupid, meddling in what doesn't concern you."

He bent even lower, his foetid breath making Snape gag. "D'you remember what you called me after my OWLs? 'Barely adequate mediocrity.' Bloody shame, it is, that the barely adequate mediocrity's going to rid everyone of you, and no-one will ever know who to thank." He stepped back a pace, painfully drew himself up to his full, now-stunted height, and crowed, "Avad--"

"Expelliarmus!" someone -- well, by a process of elimination, Hermione, though Snape's stunned brain didn't recognise the coldness in her voice -- cast; Petherbridge's already-bulging eyes popped as his wand went sailing down the room toward her. He belatedly decided not to waste further time, for with a snarl he dropped to all fours like the animal he was becoming and bounded off after the elf, neatly avoiding Hermione's otherwise respectable "Incarcerous!", which hit the door-frame at what had been Petherbridge's chest-level and collapsed onto the floor in a tangles mass of ropes instead.

Everything in Snape's field of vision went fuzzy for a few seconds, but cleared again when a sadistic bastard administered two sharp slaps to his face.

"Severus?" he heard Hermione ask, voice panicked. "Severus, are you all right?"

"Took you long enough," he muttered, and passed out for good.

*****

Chapter 18 Footnotes.

Link to Chapter 19