InsaneJournal

NaNo FanFic Part 25
Previous Part
Pairings this part: Harry/Luna, implied Remus/Severus, Bill/Fleur
Rating: PG-13
Notes: hahahahahahaha fibre monster.  :P


September 2008, Orchard's End, Devon

When Teddy's urgent screams began, Severus was the first to cut his spellcasting short and turn for the stairs.  He left Bill caught in a web of arcane symbols drawn in light, but did not worry about the curse-breaker.  Bill was doubtless a match for anything the old house could devise.  Remus took longer to disengage from his casting, but he was working more intricate wardings than Severus had been, ones that would bite back if the caster lost his concentration for long. 

Thus it was Severus who almost tripped over Harry Potter when he got down the stairs.  The Auror had passed out cold just over the threshold of the parlor. 

"What in Merlin's name -" Severus cut himself off when he spotted Ron Weasley stepping out of the Floo.  "Weasley!"  Despite being shorter than the lanky ginger, Severus called upon years of successful schooltime intimidation and collared the young man.  "What the devil is Potter doing in this house?" 

Severus felt a hand on his back as Remus passed him in the corridor.  Teddy's screaming stopped there was an eerie silence from the kitchen for the three seconds it took the younger Weasley to collect himself.  "Oi!  We came to help."

Severus shook Weasley by the collar.  "Help? What are they training you Aurors in these days? How did you even know to come?" He let go at last only to turn his back on Weasley and levitate Potter's body from the hallway floor. 

"Fleur rang Mum and Mum rang me with a message for Bill.  Didn't know he'd come out here, but once we did Harry figured there was really something going on with the house." 

Severus carefully moved Potter into the kitchen, listening to Weasley's ridiculous explanation as the Auror followed.  Remus had transfigured the kitchen table into a mattress and was just laying a blanket over Luna when they came in. 

Severus let Potter's limp form settle on the mattress beside his wife, then turned around.  "Why am I forever surrounded by imbeciles?  We did not tell Potter because we knew this would happen!"  Severus whipped his hand through the air over the sleeping couple. 

Remus laid his hand on Severus's shoulder, and the potions master subsided, for the moment. 

"Ron," Remus said gently, "the Phoberos in the walls isn't very strong now, but it has a firm hold on them.  It would have been easier to extract and destroy it when Harry was gone, and Luna still awake.  Together they feed it too well.  Now we'll just have to try a different way." 

Weasley looked at his best friend with something like horror on his face.  "Is it going to hurt them?" 

Severus spoke up before Remus could sugar-coat anything.  "Given enough time, it will kill them.  But that is not the danger yet.  Now that the oneirophage knows there are enemies to fight, it will not loosen its grip.  They will sleep until the thing is gone for good." 

"Onee-what?"

Severus rolled his eyes.  They never paid attention in school.  "Oneirophage, Mr. Weasley.  It means 'dream-eater'.  The Phoberos feed on the energy of our sleeping minds.  I imagine when the Potters moved in it felt it had found a limitless feast." 

Even Remus gave Severus a reproachful look for that.  Severus shrugged.  Truth was truth.  He lived with enough nightmares himself to know whereof he spoke.   "Teddy," Severus said, changing the subject slightly.  "We need to go back upstairs and see to binding this creature.  Can you watch Luna and," Severus ground his teeth, "Harry, until we return?  If you need emergency help and we do not answer, use your mirror to call your grandmother." 

Teddy nodded solemnly.  "Yes, sir."  He settled down at the head of the mattress and leaned against the wall.  

Remus met Severus's eyes for a long moment.  Over the years they had gotten used to communicating silently. This particular look said, Wait until we're upstair to discuss the details.  Severus looked at Teddy, now quietly reading one of his muggle adventure novels, and nodded once.  He gestured Weasley and Remus to precede him out the door.

"Let's go see how well Bill's done with the first stage filtration ward," Remus told Weasley, clapping the young Auror on the shoulder as they headed for the stairs.  

Severus paused in the kitchen doorway, looking down at the sleeping couple.  He supposed that enough time and exchange of favors had passed that there was no point thinking of this as 'another' rescue.  Severus had had his chance to leave this entire crowd behind and start again somewhere far from all reminders.  He watched Remus climb the stairs behind Weasley, looked back at Teddy, and shook his head.  His choices were made.

It took Severus longer to make the climb up than it had to rush headlong down.  He was feeling the consequences of that reckless descent now, but he kept his responses tightly controlled.  When he reached the second floor, Remus gave him a long, assessing look, but Severus shook his head quickly.  Don't worry so much. As if Remus had ever listened to that particular bit of advice.

"Ah, Severus, good," said Bill as he turned around.  The walls around him were now covered in overlapping sigils glowing in red, green, and violet.  "Can you hold a four-point shield large enough to contain the whole house for at least two hours?  I know Remus could, but I need him to extract the contaminated fibres." 

Severus would normally have said yes without hesitation, but he had been winded simply climbing the stairs. Already Remus had been given the more physically demanding part of the job.  "If I can do it from this floor, I can hold it.  When should it be cast?"  

Bill nodded, looking up at the undulating web of ward-energy on the ceiling.  "Probably another hour to get the filters in place in all the rooms with this stuff," he picked at a loose thread in the cloth on the wall, "and then we can start the extraction."   The curse-breaker looked at his youngest brother and tapped the Auror's elbow with his wand.  "Ron, how are you at 5-Alpha braided wards?"     

Weasley, who had been engrossed in the play of sigils on one wall, blinked and jerked his head back around.  "I passed my practical," he said, as if that was helpful. 

Severus snorted. "In other words, abysmal, I'm sure," he scoffed.  Whether he was or not, a sharp goad would make the boy a bit more specific.

Weasley glared across the room at Severus.  "I took fifth in my class, thanks very much."

Bill's hand cut through the glaring.  "Fine.  Excellent.  Ron, you run braided wards on every room downstairs, I'll follow to do the filtration, then we'll activate them together once Severus has the shield up.   Remus will pull in the Phoberos and all the tainted fibres - which might actually be all the wall covering in the house, so everybody try to keep the mass of it directed to Remus.  Clear?" 

Ron echoed, "Clear," while Remus and Severus used the more mundane, "Yes." 

Remus went downstairs to set up the trap, and after a moment of quiet fraternal consultation, Ron followed.  Severus looked at Bill. Since Arthur's death, Bill had shouldered much of the responsibility for the Weasley family fortunes.  He had handled the job admirably, surprisingly so, although to Molly's continued chagrin he had done it with a ponytail and a dragon fang earring. Severus rarely had the opportunity to see him work, however, and found himself itching for a journal and a pen with which to record the intricate wards on the room. Come spring and Bill's return from Egypt, Severus would have to have the man to consult on potions-related warding. 

"I'll signal you when it's time to activate your shield, but you might want to lay it out and choose a room without much of this fabric in it to ground through."  Bill focused entirely on the task once his basic instructions were done, so Severus left him to it.

The only room on the second floor without the hideous fabric on the walls was, in fact, the loo.  Still, it was a small, sturdy space with room enough for Severus to stand and a window through which he could monitor the shield once it was up.  Severus walked a slow perimeter of the floor, laying the shield structure without invoking any power, and drew all of the lines of power into a node that he centered in the second floor bathtub. 

Bill grinned when he came through casting the final wards, and when Severus raised a baleful brow at him the curse-breaker had the temerity to laugh.  "Good choice, though.  Sensible.  Ready to go?" 

Severus nodded, and Bill went downstairs.  The signal was hard to miss.  It shook the whole house.  Severus pulled the lines of magic together and undid the knots that cut hem off from the local ley lines.  A great deal of white-hot, white-bright magic rushed through him, then expanded into a bubble thin as paper but tough as steel.  For so long as Severus held the shield, the Phoberos would be trapped within its volume and subject to the wards and trap. 

At a certain point, the magic ceased to feel like a rushing current and began to feel like a still pool.  Severus knew that this was the moment when it was at its most dangerous, for the inexperienced wizard might think his source had dried up and go seeking more.   Severus held his shields and the node-lines steady, unwilling to burn out over the illusion.  He propped his elbow on the windowsill to rest his wand arm, and listened for any progress the others were making. 

Pounding feet accompanied the racket of fabric tearing, and at least twice there was the clatter as if a shelf had been knocked about, or fallen over.  The two Weasleys seemed to be shouting Quidditch plays at each other, and Severus didn't really want to ponder the reasons for that too deeply.  As long as they did the job.  He heard nothing from Remus, nor from Teddy, which he hoped were good things. 

His wand hand had begun to shake when Bill's end signal came shooting up the staircase and into the loo.  Severus gratefully let the node lines go and the shield popped as if had been made of soap instead of the substance of earth magic and Severus's own will. 

Bill gave Severus a long look when he came up to check on things, but thankfully the curse-breaker had the sense not to offer Severus a helping hand or a levitation charm for the stairs.  When Severus finally, pain-stakingly reached the ground floor, he found Remus busily wrapping what appeared to be the county's largest ball of yarn in protective spells. 

"Is that all of it?" Severus asked.

Remus nodded.  "Neutralized and ready for the bonfire."

Severus sighed and went into the kitchen, where Teddy pulled a chair out for him.  The Potters were stirring, but not yet awake.  Teddy wrapped his arms around Severus, and Severus, who had gotten used to the loss of hugs since Teddy had decided that ten was 'much too old' for such things, rubbed the boy's back.  "All right, Teddy?"

Teddy's hair had gone rainbow, and his nose turned up.  "Yes, sir.  I wasn't scared."  Such a little liar.  Severus let himself smile. 

"Well, I was scared enough for both of us, then.  Is the kettle still around, or has your father transfigured it as well?" 

Teddy laughed brightly and shook his head.  "Dad?  Transfigure a perfectly good kettle into something else? I'll get it!"

By the time the tea was ready, Bill had gone home to his anxious wife and daughters, and Remus and Weasley had joined Severus in the kitchen waiting for the Potters to wake up. 

Luna woke first, and Potter soon after.  Potter rolled half off the mattress, wand already in his hand, and moaned, "Merlin, my head.  I had the worst nightmare.  Snape was trying to get the Giant Squid into a Weasley sweater." 

By the time Remus had calmed down and gotten up off the floor, Harry had stopped scowling, Snape had stopped glaring, but Luna and Teddy were still laughing.