Heat, Light and the Properties of Plants

Chapter 15 Developments

That night, as they all sat round the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place eating Ron\'s surprisingly edible stew, Harry was noticeably silent.

\"What\'s wrong, Harry?\" asked Hermione. \"That\'s the third time I\'ve asked you for the pumpkin juice!\"

\"Uh, sorry,\" Harry mumbled, pushing the jug down the table towards Hermione. \"Got a lot on my mind.\"

The main thing on his mind was whether to tell the others about the parchment the crow had dropped at his feet in Knockturn Alley. And by the end of the evening he still hadn\'t decided. The others, assuming he was worrying about Snape, left him alone.

Early the next morning Harry gave up on trying to sleep. He\'d had a restless night, sleeping in fits and starts, worrying about what to do. But he\'d finally made his mind up; he\'d go alone. He couldn\'t risk endangering Snape.

He had a quick wash, dressed, and reached his empty backpack down from the top of the wardrobe. Harry stuffed a change of clothes and his Invisibility Cloak into the backpack, then added his and Snape\'s wizard photographs. He shoved his wand and the crow\'s parchment into his pocket, then tiptoed downstairs.

Down in the kitchen, he quickly made himself a packet of sandwiches and a flask of pumpkin juice and put them into a side pocket of his backpack. He was just about to leave, when he noticed Hermione\'s quill and ink bottle still standing on the table where she\'d been making notes from Secret Wizard Pubs of Britain and Northern Europe the night before.

\"I suppose I\'d better leave them a note,\" Harry said to himself. \"Don\'t want them worrying more than I can help.\"

He borrowed Hermione\'s quill and a bit of her blank parchment and wrote:

Dear all
I\'ve heard from Severus and I\'m off to see him.
Don\'t worry.
Back soon,
Harry

Harry quietly let himself out into the grey light of a London dawn and walked a little way down the street. He pulled out the parchment, looked all round to make sure he was alone, then tapped it with his wand and murmured \"Silent Witch.\"

At once spidery lines spread out across the parchment, showing roads and tracks, and one or two tiny pictures of buildings. In the top left hand corner a cluster of tiny trees represented a wood.

Underneath the map was a message in Snape\'s handwriting:

Tap the picture of the wood, say \"Apparatamus\" and Apparate. You will then be near the Silent Witch. Stay in the wood and wait for further instructions.

Harry took a deep breath. It was risky, Apparating into the unknown like that. Still, if he wanted to find Snape he had to trust him, so he tapped the parchment as instructed, whispered \"Apparatamus\" and disappeared.

*************************

Later that morning Tonks was the first into the kitchen; she began bustling about getting ready to cook breakfast for everyone and didn\'t notice the piece of parchment which Harry had left propped up against Secret Wizard Pubs of Britain and Northern Europe.

A few minutes later she was joined by Ron and Hermione.
\"Morning,\" Tonks greeted them, looking up from the frying pan. \"Could you go and give Remus a shake, Ron, he keeps going back to sleep. Must be that new Wolfsbane Potion.\"

Hermione went over to the table to clear away her books and notes, and immediately spotted the parchment with Harry\'s writing.

\"Look at this!\" she said excitedly, and read it out.

\"Bloody idiot!\" exclaimed Ron.

Over breakfast, the four of them argued over what they should do. Remus said they should trust Harry to keep out of trouble and just wait and see what happened. Ron and Hermione were vehemently opposed to this.

\"Keep out of trouble?\" said Ron scornfully. \"Harry couldn\'t keep out of trouble to save his life!\"

\"And what does he mean, he\'s heard from Snape?\" asked Hermione. \"How? And why didn\'t he tell us about it?\"

\"I reckon he must\'ve heard from him while he was out yesterday,\" said Tonks. \"That\'s why he was so gloomy last night.\"

\"Well, we should find out where he was yesterday, then,\" said Hermione. \"That might give us a clue.\"

\"He said he was going to get some money from his Gringotts\' vault,\" Ron said. \"We\'d better start there.\"

But when the four got to Gringotts, they were told nobody had seen him since he left with his money the previous afternoon, the goblins didn\'t know where to.

*************************

Early in the afternoon, hidden under his Invisibility Cloak, Harry walked up the path to the Silent Witch. He\'d had a frustrating morning hiding in the wood, waiting in vain for his next instructions from Snape to appear on the parchment. At last he\'d decided to take matters into his own hands and seek out the pub himself.

Harry slipped into the pub in the wake of a couple of arguing hags. He stood by the door for a moment, looking round and getting his bearings. He nearly gasped aloud at the sudden surge of sexual attraction he felt when he caught sight of Snape, sitting at a table in a corner with three strangers.

Snape looked round as though sensing that someone was watching him. Harry made sure he was fully protected by both mental wards and Invisibility Cloak before venturing over to the table. He had to bite his hand to stifle a groan of lust as he saw Snape\'s long fingers playing with his glass, making him remember things those fingers had done to him.

Harry dived under the table, resisting the urge to just lean against Snape\'s legs in mindless content at being near him again. But his euphoria quickly vanished as he took in the drift of the conversation around the table.

*************************

Remus and Tonks were methodically visiting all the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley, asking if any of them had seen Harry the previous day. Meanwhile Ron and Hermione tried the Leaky Cauldron.

\"Hello sir and madam, what can I get you?\" asked Tom.

\"A couple of Butterbeers, please,\" said Ron, groping for his money. \"Er, have you seen a friend of ours recently, by any chance? Harry Potter?\"

\"Oh yes,\" replied Tom, passing the Butterbeers over the counter. \"He was in here yesterday as a matter of fact. Looking rather peaky if you ask me. I think it\'s a disgrace the way the Ministry have just ignored him. He should get the Order of Merlin and an all expenses paid holiday to the Bahamas at the very least.\"

\"Mm, yes, shocking,\" agreed Hermione, taking a sip of her Butterbeer. \"Still, I think he\'s quite glad to be out of the limelight for a while. Perhaps now Voldemort\'s gone Harry will finally get the chance of a normal life.\"

Tom winked at her knowingly. \"He\'s doing that, all right, miss. Did you know he\'s got himself a young lady?\"

Hermione and Ron looked at each other. \"Uh, no, we didn\'t,\" said Ron. \"Are you sure?\"

\"Well, he was asking me directions to a wizard photographer, so\'s he could give her a nice keepsake,\" said Tom.

*************************

\"There\'s no sign of him so far,\" croaked the wizard that Snape had addressed as Simonides. \"Are you sure he\'ll turn up?\"

\"Oh yes,\" replied Snape. \"I told you before: I\'ve been in his head as well as up his arse. I know just how he thinks. He has this thing about rescuing people...\"

One of the other wizards broke in. \"Did you two have a good time with those whores the other night?\"

\"Yes thank you,\" smirked Snape, with a suggestive gesture. \"They were very... inventive, especially the little blond one - what\'s his name? ... he reminds me a bit of one of my old pupils .. he could be most, ah accommodating at times... \"

Harry didn\'t hear the reply, he was too busy fighting down a violent surge of sexual jealousy. He itched to get his hands round Snape\'s throat. Gritting his teeth he tuned the conversation back in:

\"...had a reluctant virgin one once,\" one of the wizards was saying. \"Didn\'t want to do it at all, so I handed him round to be finger-fucked by every man in the pub.\"

The wizards all burst into loud raucous laughter. \"He was getting quite excited after a while but I wouldn\'t let any of them go on long enough for him to come. By the end of the evening he was begging for a proper fucking.\" He sniggered. \"I was happy to oblige. Didn\'t have any more trouble with him after that.\"

\"I just whip \'em if they don\'t want to do it,\" Simonides croaked. \"That makes \'em beg for it without wasting time.\"

\"You\'ve no subtlety, Corvid. How about you, Severus?\"

\"It depends,\" Snape replied. He smirked. \"I remember once - \"

But Harry didn\'t wait to hear any more. Sick at heart, he made sure his Invisibility Cloak was securely in place, and left the pub. He hoped that Snape was just playing a part, in order to get close to the Death Eaters. But if so, he was playing it far too realistically for Harry\'s liking...

*************************

Ron and Hermione retraced Harry\'s footsteps down Knockturn Alley. Tom had been most reluctant to tell them which photographer he\'d recommended to Harry. In the end he\'d discreetly whispered the information into Ron\'s ear while Hermione was finishing her drink.

\"I think he thought it wasn\'t fit for your delicate ears,\" snorted Ron, as they stopped outside Quercus Studios. \"He\'d have a fit if he knew you\'d come with me.\"

\"Well, it does seem to be a rather dubious place,\" said Hermione, eyeing the window display. \"But come on; if Harry was here, maybe they\'ll know something.\"

They pushed open the door and went into the studio. Quercus looked up from behind the counter and beamed at them. \"Hello, dears,\" he said. \"Come for a photo session, have you?\"

\"Er, no,\" said Ron. \"We\'re looking for a friend of ours. We think he came in here yesterday to get his picture taken to give a friend.\"

\"Ooh, I know the one you mean. Nice boy. Bit uptight, if you get my drift. None the worse for that, though.\"

\"Did he say if he knew where his friend is at the moment?\"

\"Oh, no,\" replied Quercus. \"You do know who his friend is, don\'t you? The infamous Severus Snape? I should have warned him about that one, but I didn\'t have the heart.\"

\"We need to find him,\" said Hermione urgently. \"We think he\'s in danger. Did he give you any idea where he might be going?\"

\"\'Fraid not, ducky,\" Quercus said. \"Ooh, wait. A funny thing did happen just as he was leaving. This great black crow thing swooped down and dropped a roll of parchment on him.\"

\"Do you know what it was?\" demanded Ron.

Quercus shook his head regretfully. \"No, dear. He did say something about a silent witch, though.\"

\"A silent witch?\" asked Hermione. \"Do you have any idea what he meant?\"

\"Not a clue, dears,\" Quercus sniggered. \"None of the witches I know fit that description!\"

*************************

When Hermione and Ron got back to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, they found that Remus and Tonks were there before them.

\"I hope you\'ve had more luck than us,\" Remus said wearily.

\"Not really,\" Ron said. \"We met this weird photographer guy in Knockturn Alley who took Harry\'s picture yesterday. Sounds like Harry got a message of some sort - he said something about a silent witch - but we haven\'t got a clue who she is.\"

\"Oh!\" Hermione exclaimed suddenly. \"I\'ve been trying to think where I\'d heard that before. It\'s not a she, Ron. It\'s a what.\"

\"A what?\" asked Ron blankly.

\"Yes!\" Hermione jumped up, and snatching up Secret Wizard Pubs of Britain and Northern Europe, began leafing excitedly through it. \"I thought I\'d seen it in here somewhere - yes, here it is, look!\"

She held up the book, pointing to the entry.

The Silent Witch, so called because of the picture of a headless crone on the inn sign...

Ron snorted with laughter, Hermione tutted...

...rumoured to be the haunt of dark wizards... can only be found by those bearing the Dark Mark, and those they take into their confidence.

\"What good\'s that?\" Ron said impatiently. \"The only Death Eater we know out of Azkaban is Snape himself.\"

\"There is one other...\" Hermione said slowly. \"...there\'s Draco Malfoy...\"